Ericsson expands SPO packet-optical transport family

Ericsson has added a new member to its line of SPO Packet Optical Transport Platform (POTP) products. The new SPO 1480 is designed to address the requirements of the metro regional network. The SPO 1480 adds modular DWDM and Optical Transport Network (OTN) capabilities to the line, giving operators the ability to support popular packet, TDM, and wavelength services on one platform.

The company says the SPO 1400 family features a simple and scalable hybrid TDM-WDM-packet architecture that is ideal for legacy TDM-based networks that need a low-risk transition to ultrahigh capacity packet transport. Its building-block architecture gives operators the flexibility to optimize node configurations for location and cost with the ability to scale optical capacity without sacrificing shelf switching capacity. For example, operators who only need ROADM functionality in their application don’t also need to enable switching capacity, Alan Repech, product marketing for product area IP and Broadband, told Lightwave at Ericsson’s booth at OFC/NFOEC last week. Fully configured, the product features OTN, SONET/SDH, and PDH support and performance; Layer 2 connection-oriented Ethernet switching and aggregation; and WDM/ROADM technology.

Ericsson also claims that the SPO 1400 family provides the highest capacity density and lowest power profile in the POTP/P-OTS industry. The standard chassis size is 300 mm deep, which means two chassis easily can be mounted back-to-back to save floor space.

The new SPO 1480 offers 32 Tbps of switching in 32 slots in a package 300 mm deep. It can be configured with four-degree and two-degree ROADM cards. It offers 40-Gbps interfaces for traffic within the metro/regional network, with a coherent 100-Gbps interface for handing traffic upstream towards the network core.

Network operators using Ericsson’s SPO POTP family can deliver TDM, packet and wavelength services across the metro access and regional network on a common set of platforms with a single multilayer IP Transport Network Management Systems (IPT NMS).

"Ericsson’s latest SPO release provides network operators with a single platform that spans the metro from access/aggregation to regional/core," said Phil Winterbottom, head of optical and metro product management at Ericsson. "By providing an integrated platform that supports all the networking layers from WDM to TDM and Packet, we have provided the simplest and most cost-effective path for modernizing metro optical networks."

For more information on packet-optical systems and suppliers, visit the Lightwave Buyer’s Guide.