The incredible shrinking CO: Bringing a standard down to size

As the migration to converged networks picks up steam, service providers continue to look for ways to expand into new markets and simultaneously save money.

With their focus shifting from big cities to smaller cities, many ISPs, incumbent local exchange carriers and competitive LECs see opportunity in smaller markets but cannot justify the cost of a Class 5 switch. A carrier's best option so far has been to backhaul circuits from a smaller city to the nearest Class 5 switch.

Kicking the competition in the converged networking space up a notch, Tachion Networks has collapsed the central office (CO) into a single box. The Fusion 5000 controls switching, routing, transport and signaling and supports multiple switching fabrics - ATM, time division multiplexing, frame relay and IP - on a single port. It is targeted at CLECs, ISPs, interexchange carriers (IXCs) and ILECs that want to expand into new markets quickly and inexpensively.

But Tachion is not alone in the convergence market. Sonus Networks, Salix Technologies and Convergent Networks compete in the same space.

Convergent comes close to Tachion on the ATM switch side, said Andrew Cray, research analyst for The Yankee Group.

"One of the most difficult things to build is an ATM switch," he said, adding that Tachion did "a smart thing" by building multiple switching fabrics on one card.

While Sonus and Salix developed proprietary systems, Tachion based its Fusion 5000 on open standards. The feat may have been difficult and the development lengthy, but it should pay off, Cray said. "It's something unique and very different in a hot space."

While the uniqueness of the Fusion 5000 may attract customers, its redundancy may hinder Tachion's potential as a strategic acquisition target because most large vendors already manufacture versions of the individual elements that make up the collapsed CO, Cray said. Service providers also will not replace existing equipment, leaving Tachion to target providers expanding into new markets.

The idea of a switch that allows a service provider to select and configure a port for multiple services attracted MCI WorldCom, an early tester of the Fusion 5000.

"We are constantly looking at ways to collapse voice and data into a single network, and collapse multiple data networks into a single platform," said Robert Gourley, senior scientist for MCI WorldCom. "The collapsed central office is an interesting way of looking at the next steps coming in public networking."

Using the collapsed CO, MCI WorldCom will be able to deploy services faster, especially internationally and in developing areas, Gourley said. "We are expanding so fast internationally that we really need a product that can take us more rapidly into those areas."

For the cost of two traditional COs, a service provider can open 10 collapsed COs, said Chuck Harris, vice president of marketing and business development for Tachion. The collapsed CO also reduces time to market, interoperability testing and maintenance costs because one box has the functionality of six.

"Once you open up, you can rapidly integrate the product with the management system," Harris said. Tachion plans to announce the first of its collapsed CO customers this month.

MCI WorldCom plans to continue testing the Fusion 5000 during the next few months, and it likes the collapsed CO's hot-swappable cards, redundant power supply and NEBs compliance, Gourley said. Based on suggestions from MCI WorldCom, Tachion already has made improvements to the power feed and network management capabilities.

Although MCI WorldCom and Comcast are testing the equipment, service providers still may need convincing when it comes to capping their investments on the Class 5 switches, Cray said. Even though time to market and cost savings are big concerns, "a lot of CLECs don't believe it's possible to replicate the functions of a Class 5 switch," he said. "The challenge is to prove that this thing will work."