Fiber gets more edgy

Integral Access this week will announce a new fiber interface and GR-303 certification for its PurePacket Node multiservice gateway system. The product now is interoperable with Lucent Technologies' 5ESS AnyMedia and Nortel Networks' DMS switches, which means the PurePacket node can link to and pass off voice calls to those Class 5 switches.

"I believe we are the first packet-based product to go through GR-303 testing in a circuit switch," said Jack Cicon, president and CEO of Integral Access. "Our real focus going forward is on next generation switches and softswitches, but we recognize that service providers have to transition and deal with 5E and Nortel switches, so we put the GR-303 capability in there."

The PurePacket Node combines IP with multiprotocol label switching to provide carrier-class quality of service, Cicon said.

"It's a multiservice box," said Guy Chenard, vice president of marketing for Integral Access. "It's co-location in one box, and we're expanding this with fiber."

Integral Access needed to add GR-303 to evolve to new market segments, said Frank Dzubeck, president of Communications Network Architects. "It gets them out of the packet world and gets them into the hybrid world, and that's very important. It's next gen vs. old gen," he said.

Where GR-303 support was necessary in the short term, the new fiber interface offers long-term benefits. It also opens the multi-tenant unit market.

Fiber at the edge is just beginning to take hold. Next generation devices and software will allow it to become more prevalent, said Dzubeck, who predicted that more people will use that approach in 2001 than are using it today.

"We built a co-location node and extended it to the business premises," Cicon said. The device packetizes traffic - including traditional voice - at the starting point. Using MPLS, it can handle different classes of services end-to-end, he added.