Different tacks to service generation

Two new devices have been created for the space between the aggregation point and the core network. They are being offered from different vendors but share the similar goal of boosting service offerings.

Ascend Communications this week introduces its GX 250 multiservice extender for the GX 550 asynchronous transfer mode core switch to provide private-line services. Separately, start-up Spring Tide Networks is unveiling its IP Service Switch for upper-level service management.

"The IP Service Switch carves out the service layer in the carrier network," said Steve Collins, Spring Tide's founder and vice president of marketing. Distinct from the access aggregation network and the backbone network, the processor-intensive switch creates a logical point in the network where intelligence is applied across a variety of traffic flows.

"Conceptually we terminate high-speed interfaces: ATM, OC-3 and fast Ethernet. Over them, we multiplex virtual connections," Collins said. After authenticating the user, the IPSS determines where that flow is headed, then applies service processing functions in a manner unique to that flow.

Ascend takes a different tack. Its GX 250, which sits on the customer side of the GX 550, enables carriers to migrate from time division multiplexing to ATM and offer bandwidth wholesaling and private line services, said Dennis Fiore, product manager for Ascend's core systems division.

It provides integrated switching and transport with direct connectivity to the optical wave division multiplexing system, cutting out Sonet and digital cross-connect systems, and allows for rapid service provisioning. And it's managed as part of the GX 550. "It's a flattening-out of the day-to-day operations," Fiore said. "You do not even see the 250. It is literally an extender shelf."

Williams has signed up for 70 such systems.