RAD's EtherAccess and Cellular Backhaul Solutions Participate in EANTC's Largest Ever Public Carrier Ethernet Interoperability Test
26th September 2007: RAD Data Communications and 23 other leading telecommunications industry vendors are participating in the largest and most diverse public Carrier Ethernet multi-vendor interoperability test ever staged. Organised by the European Advanced Networking Test Center (EANTC), the test is being conducted at the Carrier Ethernet World Congress 2007, which is being held in Geneva, Switzerland.
The live test with more than 65 devices is geared towards network operators providing Carrier Ethernet services. It is targeted at verifying the current interoperability status of a wide range of implementations as well as provisioning and fault management solutions.
"We are proud to note that RAD's EtherAccess line of Ethernet access devices have played a major role in this tremendous public testing process," stated Yacov Cazes, Director of Ethernet Access Solutions at RAD Data Communications. "Featuring 802.1ag standard Ethernet OAM (Operations, Administration and Management), RAD's EtherAccess products support the rollout of Ethernet Virtual Private Line (EVPL) and Ethernet Private Line (EPL), as well as E-Line and E-LAN services, over fibre, DSL and bonded copper circuits," Cazes noted. "By introducing standard Ethernet OAM in the access, RAD has brought end-to-end service control to a multi-vendor, multi-access technology environment."
Ethernet- over PDH/SDH, SHDSL and Fibre
RAD is demonstrating an Ethernet-over-PDH/SDH service based on GFP, VCAT and LCAS using its Egate-100 aggregator and RICi-16 customer premises equipment (CPE). Each bonded group was mapped to a VLAN into the metro network. In addition, RAD is demonstrating MEF-9 and MEF-14 compliant Ethernet access over SHDSL (2Base2L) using eight bonded wires employing Ethernet in the First Mile (EFM) bonding.
The company's ETX product line of fibre Ethernet network termination units (E-NTUs) are demonstrating the use of connection fault management (CFM) on E-NTUs to determine path failure and allow the device to switch to an alternative path. Two ETX-202 units exchanged CFM loopback messages across the primary path. When a failure occurred, the units shut down the primary path and switched traffic to the backup path.
TDM and ATM Service Emulation for Cellular Backhauling Applications
RAD also demonstrated TDM and ATM service emulation over PBT and T-MPLS metro clouds and across the core. The emulation used E1 TDM and E1 ATM traffic, as is typically seen in cellular 2G/3G base stations. Both E1 TDM and ATM services were groomed onto RAD's ACE-3200 cell site gateway, tunneled through the metro clouds and terminated on RAD's ACE-3400 RNC/BSC site gateway. Timing synchronisation was successfully maintained to prevent clocking issues in the end-to-end TDM and ATM services. RAD's ACE devices support aggregation of multiple STM-1/OC-3 links over Gigabit Ethernet using pseudowire technology to ensure the most economical allocation of backhauling resources and the delivery of multiple 3G services.
IEEE, ITU-T and MEF Specifications for Carrier Ethernet Services
In preparation for the event, more than 70 engineers from participating companies evaluated the interoperability of their solutions in detail in a closed-door, ten-day long intense hot-staging at EANTC's lab in Berlin, Germany. Preparations for the test began in April 2007 and covered the latest IEEE, ITU-T and MEF specifications for Carrier Ethernet services.
Apart from RAD, the other vendors that participated in the interoperability testing were Alcatel-Lucent, ANDA Networks, Ceragon Networks, Ciena, Cisco Systems, Extreme Networks, Gridpoint Systems, Hammerhead Systems, Harris Stratex Networks, Huawei Technologies, Ixia, Juniper Networks, MRV Communications, Nokia Siemens Networks, Nortel, Shenick Network Systems, Soapstone Networks, Spirent Communications, Telco Systems, Tellabs, TPACK, World Wide Packets, and ZTE.
About EANTC
The European Advanced Networking Test Center (EANTC) offers vendor-neutral consultancy and test facilities for network equipment manufacturers, service providers and enterprise customers. Primary business areas include interoperability, conformance, and performance testing for IP/MPLS, Carrier Ethernet and Triple Play technologies and applications.
About RAD
Established in 1981, privately owned RAD Data Communications has achieved international recognition as a major manufacturer of high quality access equipment for data communications and telecommunications applications. These solutions serve the data and voice access requirements of service providers, incumbent and new carriers, and enterprise networks, by reducing infrastructure investment costs while boosting competitiveness and profitability. The company's installed base exceeds 10,000,000 units and includes more than 150 carriers and operators around the world. These customers are supported by 21 RAD offices and more than 300 channel partners in 164 countries.
RAD is a member of the RAD Group of companies, a world leader in networking and internetworking product solutions.
Press Contact
RAD Bob Eliaz, Media Relations Manager 24 Raoul Wallenberg Street Tel Aviv 69719, Israel Tel: +972-3-6458134 Fax: +972-3-6498250 e-mail: bob@rad.com