Équipe adds label switching

Équipe Communications will announce this week that it has added label switch routing (LSR) functionality to its ATM switch. The additional feature comes as part of the company’s Évail 3.0 of its software for the Équipe 3200 switch.

With the addition, the switch can now provide LSR functionality along side native ATM switching and ATM/MPLS Interworking functionality. The goal, according to Chris Ford, senior product marketing manager for Équipe is to give Layer 2 carriers the ability to run higher value ATM and Frame Relay services over an MPLS backbone.

“LSR makes it ideal for carriers looking to use MPLS as a convergence vehicle for ATM and Ethernet,” he said. “We’re targeting what we see as the Layer 2 carriers who have not made the jump to MPLS for various reasons.”

That pool of carriers is shrinking fast, though. Already, the company has tested the new release with BellSouth and Telefonica. Additionally, SBC has thrown it’s support behind the concept, but it isn’t publicly committing to deployment just yet.

Équipe is comparing implementation of the switch to router-based MPLS networks, noting that the 3200 offers a much more flexible approach and one that will look a lot more familiar to telcos. Among the most important differentiators is the per-connection traffic guarantees and operational visibility for all traffic types. Just as important is the ability to inter-work ATM and MPLS or switch both in their native formats, allowing carriers to provide the same type of service guarantees as in a pure ATM network.

“We think of it as hard QOS, which is the ability to perform traffic management on a per virtual circuit basis,” Ford said.