March 9, 2004 Hamburg, Germany--Pandatel AG is presenting its new C-MUX-155 optical multiplexer at this year's CeBIT trade fair in Hanover. Thanks to virtual concatenation, this multiplexer supports not only the transmission of voice and data applications in the form of an integrated access device, but also individually tailored LAN-to-LAN services - in highly granular increments of speed up to STM-1/OC-3.
The C-MUX-155 is targeted primarily at carriers with SDH/SONET infrastructures who want to offer their customers tailormade Ethernet and voice services while at the same time making optimal use of their own network capacity. Large enterprises can also use the C-MUX-155 for interconnecting networks at different branches (whether 10 BaseT, 100 BaseT or 1GbaseT) and for the high-speed, cost-effective transmission of all LAN or voice traffic.
Being designed for voice transmission, SDH/SONET networks are not well-adapted for the really efficient transmission of data, e.g. Ethernet data. They transport the digital signals in static containers that allow very few increments in terms of bandwidth: in most cases only part of the SDH/SONET container is used during the transmission of Ethernet data, with the result that bandwidth is wasted and the Ethernet services are correspondingly cost-intensive.
The C-MUX-155 solves this problem by packing the flow of Ethernet data into virtual containers (VC-12/VT-1.5) and aggregating them - by means of virtual concatenation technology - into a single virtual container which fills the 155-Mbit/sec SDH/SONET frame of an STM-1-/OC-3 line completely. Optimal use is made of the SDH/SONET connection's bandwidth, while at the same time the small size of the VC-12/VT-1.5 container permits a highly granular increase in the Ethernet bandwidth in 1-Mbit/sec increments up to the Fast Ethernet speed of 100 Mbits/sec. This means that a carrier can always provide its customers with the exact transmission capacity they require.
Since the C-MUX-155 can be used both as a terminal multiplexer and as an add/drop multiplexer it supports numerous network topologies, from straightforward point-to-point, star-type or ring structures to complex point-to-multipoint or fully intermeshed network structures. It is equipped with a powerful Layer 2 Ethernet interface and interchangeable TDM interfaces for voice transmission. The Ethernet card contains eight external LAN interfaces and up to eight virtual WAN interfaces. One LAN interface supports 1GBaseT, while the other seven support 10/100BaseT with auto negotiation.
Pandatel will unveil the C-MUX-155 at its CeBIT booth Hall 27, D45 on March 18, at 11 a.m. The multiplexer will be available from specialist distributors and system integrators from June 2004 onward.