SEPTEMBER 30, 2008 -- ADVA Optical Networking (search for ADVA Optical Networking) this week announced the introduction of its Flexible Remote Node (FRN), an extension of the ADVA FSP 3000 that enables network operators to cost-effectively introduce WDM-PON (search for WDM-PON) into their network. The FRN is a key element of future-proof FTTx concepts, say ADVA representatives, allowing carriers to deliver larger amounts of bandwidth at a significantly lower cost.
In today's times of fierce price competition, higher upstream demands, and regulatory pressure for local loop unbundling, carriers are challenged to consolidate their metro networks and rethink their access strategies. To ensure long-term profitable service delivery, communications providers must drive toward a strategy of converged access and backhaul for residential and business services, fewer active components in the access network, the elimination of local exchanges, and reduced power consumption and space utilization.
"There is true benefit to having WDM in both the access and backhaul segments of the network," contends Christoph Glingener, chief technology officer of ADVA Optical Networking. "There have been several false starts in the industry regarding FTTx deployments; many solutions have shown limited scalability, introduced network complexity, and increased operational costs. Our new unified approach, employing a WDM-PON solution, will enable service providers of all kinds to extend the benefits of WDM into the access network, thereby eliminating active sites and reducing overall network costs," he says.
Fully integrated into the ADVA FSP 3000 platform, the FRN is part of a scalable Optical+Ethernet transport offering that enables communications providers to serve their residential, business, and wholesale customers from a unified access and backhaul network, says ADVA. When located at the curb, the FRN can be configured as a purely passive network element with environmentally hardened WDM filters that allow the setup of a point-to-multipoint WDM-PON structure. When located at a street cabinet, the FRN can include active equipment such as optical amplifiers and active Ethernet technology that enable reach extension and traffic aggregation.
The introduction of WDM into the FTTx environment challenges current EPON and GPON concepts. EPON and GPON use protocol-based traffic separation, which creates security concerns for high-end users, notes ADVA. Bandwidth scalability is limited and affected by the demands of neighboring customers. Loss-intensive splitting and the absence of optical amplification limit the reach of such offerings to roughly 20 km.
A WDM-PON approach, by contrast, uses wavelength-based traffic separation implemented with wavelength-selective filters. Bandwidth-per-cabinet, -building, or -end user can be scaled nearly indefinitely, while the reach can be extended to 100 km or more. The combination of secure traffic separation, scalable bandwidth, and extended reach enables carriers to serve a wider customer base from fewer active sites, explain company representatives. It eliminates the need for purpose-built platforms and allows a streamlined network operation with fewer operational staff.
In times where the cost of energy to run network equipment and to climate-control the facilities that house them is skyrocketing, the elimination of active equipment and the reduction in the number of active network sites is attractive. But service providers can become more independent of rising energy costs with the integrated access and backhaul network approach that the FSP 3000 enables. A cohesive Optical+Ethernet transport approach with WDM-PON extension can deliver residential, business, and wireless applications from a single platform, ADVA maintains.
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