Globalcomm: Anda expands, woos new partner

CHICAGO--Anda Networks announced a new Ethernet-over-copper product and a new round of funding at the Globalcomm trade show this week as it worked to win an original equipment manufacturer partnership with an unnamed major vendor.

At the show, Anda unveiled a new circuit-bonding platform called the EtherSLAM, named so (as in “Ethernet service line access multiplexer”) to represent an Ethernet-based analogue to DSLAMs, the pervasive DSL gear.

The EtherSLAM uses channelized DS-3 interfaces to bond T-1s, serving locations that don’t have access to fiber networks. Each shelf in the U.S. version of the EtherSLAM supports up to 168 terminations.

Also at the show, Anda announced the close of a new $10.5-million E- round of funding. The new funding brings the eight-year-old company’s total to about $107 million. Its last round was in March 2000.

The company will use the new funding for international expansion, adding research and development facilities and customer support in Asia, Western Europe and Latin America.

The company also told Telephony it had hoped to announce an OEM agreement with a large optical equipment vendor at the show. The deal was expected to involve both product distribution and equity investment, Anda said, with the OEM partner participating in the $10.5-million E round, which Anda earlier expected to total approximately $12 million.

The company wasn’t immediately available to elaborate.

Anda’s announcement of new funds for international expansion comes the same week as a similar announcement (right down to the unnamed OEM partner, in fact) from rival Hatteras Networks. Michael Howard, principal analyst for Infonetics Research, has predicted market share leaders in the young Ethernet-over-copper equipment space to emerge this year.