Alcatel introduces new crossconnect

Alcatel claims its new "1671 Service Connect" represents a new product category: the multiservice crossconnect.

The 1671 combines time-division multiplexing with wideband, broadband and narrowband aggregation of data traffic such as frame relay and ATM, grooming at the STS-1 and VT1.5 levels for handoff to IP networks.

"As operators transition to an IP MPLS core infrastructure, they want to be able to hit those IP router interfaces with packet-over-Sonet [traffic] that’s already filled up with the data services," said Tom Fuerst, Alcatel’s vice president of strategic marketing. "They don’t want to aggregate the lower-rate services on the expensive IP router ports, they want to do it on a multiservice crossconnect. That’s in part where this product comes in."

The vendor hopes the 1671 stands apart from multiservice provisioning platforms (MSPPs) and large add/drop multiplexers (ADMs) by putting data aggregation in a crossconnect architecture, thereby including the kind of redundancy (with matrices divided among different shelves for greater safety) that MSPPs and ADMs don’t have.

"It’s a different beast altogether than an MSPP or an ADM," Fuerst said.

Alcatel expects the new device to gradually replace its 1631 LMC wideband crossconnect, which has between 40 and 50 customers in North America, from CLECs and ILECs to IXCs and wireless carriers, Fuerst said. But those carriers can transition from that device to the 1671 in stages, replacing one redundant matrix at a time to avoid interrupting live traffic.

A large North American interexchange carrier (a customer of the 1631 that Alcatel couldn’t name) has already agreed to deploy the new crossconnect later this year, Fuerst said. It is generally available now.