France Telecom Stays Competitive in LAN-to-LAN Market with ACE-101 Multiservice Access Concentrator

As more and more companies link multiple offices and use bandwidth-intensive applications, they require faster and higher capacity connectivity. In particular, companies with operations within a metropolitan area are extending their LANs between sites.

To satisfy users demand for faster LAN access and edge out the competition in the LAN-to-LAN market, France Telecom has introduced Inter LAN 2.0 HD, operational in 11 major cities throughout France. This innovative service provides high speed LAN connectivity at rates of 2 Mbps to 100 Mbps within a metropolitan area.

Flexibility is a unique aspect of Inter LAN 2.0 HD, which offers several levels of service. For example, it is possible to subscribe to the service with an access rate of 2 Mbps and upgrade to higher rates at very low cost.

RAD's ACE-101 multiservice access concentrator installed at the customer premises connects to the customer network via an Ethernet, Fast Ethernet or ATM interface. “We chose the ACE-101 because of its technical capabilities and price,” says Sophie Cullen-Milano, the Lead Procurement Negotiator at France Telecom who organized the evaluation process and participated in selecting the vendor. “In addition,” she states, “RAD has a very good distribution channel, with Newbridge (Alcatel) France providing full support for the ACE devices.”

“ACE-101 helps us reach our low target price to the customer, which is a crucial sales advantage for this service,” explains Inter LAN 2.0 HD Project Manager Rozen Lamassoure. “Lines are monitored 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and France Telecom guarantees (from Monday to Saturday, 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.) that any system fault will be corrected within four hours. Since required Quality of Service (QoS) is selected by the customer and guaranteed by service level agreements (SLAs), we needed a compact device that also offers a high level of service,” says Lamassoure.

The traffic management, especially traffic shaping, capabilities of the ACE-101 help France Telecom maintain its stringent QoS requirements. The ability of the ACE-101 to absorb bursty LAN traffic and release it in a smooth stream minimizes network congestion and ensures that all data reaches its destination. Its simple, seamless interconnection of LAN segments at very high speeds, while providing transparent bridging, makes the ACE-101 an ideal choice for metropolitan applications. In addition, the ACE-101 can map IP class of service (CoS) to ATM QoS, taking advantage of the carrier s ATM network to provide IP services with end-to-end quality assurances.

RAD has recently developed the ACE-202, a more robust version of the ACE-101.