METRO MODULARITY

The cheap and easy attributes of Ethernet make delivering services to the customer premises a pretty sexy proposition. Cost-effectiveness doesn't hurt, either. At least that's what Nortel Networks is betting on with the birth of a new member of the OPTera Metro family, the 1450 Ethernet service module.

The module is designed to support point-to-point, point-to-multipoint and any-to-any network designs. It acts as the new Layer 2 virtual private network demarcation point that can sit in the service provider point of presence, central office or customer premises.

“What's great is that it separates the service provider and the enterprise,” said Stephen Garcia, director of optical Ethernet product marketing at Nortel. “It's clear who is responsible for what, and [providers] have the ability to securely separate customer traffic from one another.”

Behind the service module is Nortel's “logical provider edge” model, which has been submitted to the Internet Engineering Task Force for approval. The device is supposed to make connecting to a new location in the metro as easy as hooking up a new device to an Ethernet LAN, according to Garcia.

And given that the module uses some characteristics of multi-protocol label switching (MPLS), the provisioning headaches come way down, said Marc Bernstein, senior marketing manager for optical Ethernet at Nortel. “No longer is MPLS required to go all the way through,” Bernstein said. “And it's far less costly and less difficult to provision,” he said.

The OPTera 1450 offers around a 40% to 50% operational savings and a high capital savings because half of the number of devices is necessary, Garcia added.
— Liane H. LaBarba
www.nortel.com