Atrica Inc has teamed with FlexLight Networks to deliver the first Gigabit Passive Optical Networking (GPON) solution for the last mile. Atrica is based in Santa Clara, CA, USA but has R&D facilities in Israel, while FlexLight is now based in Atlanta but still has offices in Kfar Saba, Israel. Initial tests have been completed to ensure interoperability between Atrica's Optical Ethernet System and FlexLight's GPON solution, prior to joint reference-selling.
"FlexLight has developed a very cost-effective way to break the bottleneck in the last mile," says Atrica's Michael Fox. "Our GPON solution delivers greater bandwidth per customer, integrated voice and data solutions on a single fibre, longer reach per CO (Central Office) served, and a greatly reduced payback period," claims FlexLight's Gary Lee. "Used in conjunction with Atrica's Optical Ethernet System, carriers can realise the promise of metro Ethernet technology to deliver Ethernet data as well as TDM voice solutions to customers located many miles from the metro ring."
Comprised of the A-2100 Optical Ethernet Edge Switch, the A-8000 Series Optical Ethernet Core Switches and the Atrica Service Platform for Ethernet Networks (ASPEN), the Optical Ethernet System combines standard 10 Gigabit Ethernet with optical switching and traffic engineering and management capabilities to deliver the carrier-class capabilities needed for deployment of Ethernet in the metro, including sub-50ms resiliency, guaranteed SLAs, TDM support and service management.
FlexLight's optical access platform serves as the backbone of the access layer. Its Optimate solution enables transport of existing as well as emerging protocols over complex topologies. Its solution provides 2.5Gbit/s per optical wavelength across a PON network using coarse wavelength division multiplexing (CWDM). Optimate provides Fast and Gigabit Ethernet services for data as well as T1/OC3 services for TDM traffic, and carries that traffic through the access network in their native formats with Quality of Service/Class of Service guarantees.