Covaro Networks fills out customer premise offerings with Ethernet over fiber platform

September 20, 2004 Richardson, TX--Covaro Networks is launching CC-411, a customer premises platform, which serves as a demarcation point between the service provider and the enterprise for Ethernet over fiber-based services.

For many service providers, fiber is the service delivery medium of choice. Yet, delivering intelligent Ethernet services via fiber to business customers requires media converters and a network interface device (NID) for demarcation.

"There's quite a bit of fiber in the ground, and, while it wasn't popular for a couple of years in some circles, several of the larger service providers now rely on fiber to deliver the bulk of their Ethernet services to business customers," stated Joe Bass, president and chief executive officer of Covaro Networks. "Service providers need a way to make use of those existing fiber infrastructures to offer intelligent Ethernet, and the CC-411 is an ideal way for them to do that."

To deliver Ethernet, many service providers use a large router at the central office and a smaller router at the customer premises to provide network demarcation. The problem with this setup is that it is impractical, expensive, and cumbersome. For a fraction of the cost of that approach, the CC-411 converts optical Ethernet to electrical Ethernet at the customer premises and serves as a demarcation point or NID between the service provider network and the customer network. In addition, with patent-pending Etherjack functionality built into the CC-411, the service provider is capable of remotely managing Ethernet services and determining the exact location of a problem. For providers with a large installed base of customers, being able to limit truck-rolls by using remote fault location contributes to tremendous cost savings.

For carriers using "dumb" media converters, the CC-411 replaces these converters and makes possible the delivery of intelligent Ethernet services. The advanced monitoring capabilities and sophisticated service definition help service providers develop one powerful connection with their customers using fiber.

In addition, CC-411s can be used in stand-alone configurations, back-to-back configurations or combined with the CC-16000, Covaro's aggregation platform. Using a CC-16000 at the central office, a service provider can deliver service to multiple sites of the same enterprise, via fiber, DS-3 and copper, using CC-411s, CC-301s and CC-101s, respectively. That approach makes it possible for service providers to offer Ethernet service with the same look and feel to all of their customers' sites. The CC-16000 takes all of the inputs and provides a single data connection for the service provider. The combination of these devices supports Covaro's goal of enabling service providers to supply intelligent Ethernet over any medium to reach virtually any customer.

"Service providers have put off addressing customer demand for intelligent Ethernet services for as long as they possibly could, hoping they could come up with a way to meet customer needs and still profit," Bass said. "One of the biggest roadblocks has been the lack of options for providing consistent service over any media, but Covaro's offerings solve that problem, and, as a result, Ethernet is finally poised to take off."