Alcatel leaves room for frames

Alcatel unveiled a new product today meant to ease carriers’ adoption of metro Ethernet services. The newly introduced Service Interworking feature of its 7670 Routing Switch Platform is designed to complement carriers’ current frame relay offerings with high-speed Ethernet virtual private networks (VPNs).

The key differentiator of the new offering is its layer-two blending of frame relay, cell relay and metro Ethernet links under one platform, which Alcatel calls an industry first.

“It’s directly at layer two, so it’s switching between the Ethernet VPN on one side and the existing frame relay and cell connections on the other side,” said Keith Allan, Alcatel assistant vice president of strategy and solutions.

The move was guided by Alcatel’s belief that frame relay revenues won’t be totally supplanted by Ethernet revenues anytime soon. That view is supported by the relative paucity of last-mile fiber needed to deliver Ethernet services as well as IDC data that project frame relay revenues among domestic carriers to rise from $9 billion this year to nearly $10.7 billion in 2006.

“Frame relay will continue to represent a significant portion of revenues for carriers,” said Vinay Rathore, Alcatel’s director of strategic marketing.

Service Interworking is meant to accommodate enterprise customers who need high-bandwidth connections, but not at all sites. Alcatel’s method allows those customers to add high-capacity Ethernet links without giving up their frame relay links to other sites, and it saves carriers from having to overhaul the customer’s network to Ethernet-enable every access site.

“It appears as a seamless unified VPN to the end customer,” said Rathore. The new feature is embedded in the platform software, so no new equipment is needed, he said.

Alcatel is positioning the new product as a remedy to carrier angst over whether or not to cannibalize their frame relay businesses with new Ethernet services, one of the biggest impediments to metro Ethernet deployment.

Alcatel’s existing customers for its 7670 platform is largely outside the U.S, but North American customers include SBC, Cable & Wireless and Bell Canada.