Ciena unveils Ethernet-over-copper gear

Ciena announced new carrier Ethernet equipment today, publicly acknowledging for the first time an original equipment manufacturing (OEM) agreement with Anda Networks reported by Telephony last month.

Ciena’s new CN 3000 series of Ethernet access products are a set of customer premises and aggregation devices designed to support Ethernet over copper and fiber. Some products in the series will offer T-1 bonding, and some will offer DSL bonding.

Ciena also announced today the new CN 5060 multiservice carrier Ethernet platform to help carriers migrate legacy services to Ethernet in aggregation networks. The 5060 offers 60 Gb/s of switching capacity in 2.5-Gb/s and 10-Gb/s increments as well as 576 gigabit Ethernet ports--or 96 10-GbE ports--per rack. It also supports up to 384,000 pseudowires per shelf.

While the CN 5060 series was developed largely by the team that came to Ciena through its acquisition of Wavesmith Networks, the 3000 series was developed with the help of Ciena’s Anda Networks OEM.

The 3000 and 5060 gear will be available some time in the first half of this year, with “enhancements” to the 3000 series planned for the second half of the year.