iBurst taps Ciena for Carrier Ethernet-based wireless backhaul using PBB-TE
MAY 14, 2010 -- Ciena Corp. (NASDAQ:CIEN) says that South African wireless broadband service provider iBurst has deployed Ciena’s Carrier Ethernet Service Delivery (CESD) platforms to support wireless backhaul for 3G and 4G wireless networks. The network will leverage Provider Backbone Bridging – Traffic Engineering (PBB-TE; for more on this protocol, see "Multipoint PBB-TE and T-MPLS").
iBurst has replaced its existing Layer 2 infrastructure with Ciena’s wireless backhaul platforms, which leverages connection-oriented Ethernet, to provide higher performance service levels in its radio cell collection network. This architectural approach has enabled iBurst to develop a highly resilient and scalable wireless backhaul network, Ciena asserts.
The system house says that, after evaluating several options, iBurst chose Ciena’s offering for its implementation of PBB-TE technology, which provides the reliability, scalability and efficiency the service provider required to support its transport network. The Ciena CESD platforms, including the CN 5305 Service Aggregation Switch and LE 311v Service Delivery Switch, operate within iBurst’s Layer 2 environment to manage the switchover of dual microwave radio links without delays or failures. As a result, iBurst has significantly improved its quality of service (QoS) through increased network availability and resiliency, Ciena says.
The vendor adds that its platforms were also the only option with the necessary scalability to meet iBurst’s increasing network capacity requirements that are being driven by its geographic network expansion and coinciding growth in new users.
“Ciena’s solution seamlessly and efficiently resolved the Layer 2 resiliency issue we were having in our network by replacing the Spanning Tree-based architecture with reliable and predictable path management using PBB-TE,” said Sasan Parvin, CTO, iBurst. “We also resolved the challenges associated with managing multiple microwave radio links, and are now managing never before realized levels of traffic, delivering new revenue-generating services and significantly reducing our operating costs.”
In addition to the wireless backhaul platforms, iBurst has also deployed Ciena’s CN 4200 FlexSelect Advanced Services Platform to connect its primary and back-up data centers. The initial deployment includes multiple Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) and 2G Fibre Channel connections over DWDM, carrying traffic from iBurst’s Internet, VoIP, metro Ethernet, and network monitoring services. In addition, as bandwidth requirements increase and fiber becomes available, iBurst is looking to expand its use of the CN 4200 in its network to leverage the efficiency of Optical Transport Network (OTN) for transporting multiple services in one wavelength, the systems vendor asserts.
Ciena worked with its South African systems integration partner, Telecom 180, to trial and deploy the Carrier Ethernet and optical transport platforms with iBurst.
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