January 26, 2005 Minneapolis, MN -- Transition Networks Inc. today debuted its new, remotely managed 10/100/1000 copper-to-fiber media converters. They are designed to support Ethernet in the First Mile (EFM) or Fiber-to-the-Premise (FTTP) deployments, such as E-Line and E-LAN, as well as enterprise markets seeking a common platform for remote management of offsite stations.
According to the company, these converters provide a fully managed conversion between 10/100/1000Base-T and 1000Base-LX or SX signals at central office (CO) and customer premises (CP) and are IEEE 802.3ah compatible.
With this new product, service providers can now offer data access services over a fully managed, secure and high-speed Ethernet connection, say company representatives. Service providers can manage the entire optical link from the CO to the customer premise equipment (CPE). They can monitor the link, activate loopback, provision the bandwidth, manage VLANs, support quality of service (QoS), and choose appropriate mode of connection straight from their Network Management centers.
"Service providers are seeking improvements to provide cost-effective and highly functional data services to their customers," reports Bill Schultz, vice president of marketing at Transition Networks. "The IEEE 802.3ah standard opens doors for Ethernet to do just that. Secure and in-band remotely managed optical Gigabit Ethernet media conversion, coupled with flexible connectivity, bandwidth throttling, and a wide range of monitoring, troubleshooting, and reporting features provide an exceptional value for service providers," he adds.
The 10/100/1000 converter complies with the recently ratified IEEE 802.3ah standard. It supports OAM in-band management for monitoring, reporting, and active management of the entire link. Remote loopback can be activated should troubleshooting be required. A service level differentiation can be achieved by providing different bandwidth levels for different customers at a different cost.
Network security and 802.1Q VLAN management supports segmentation. QoS can be managed with 802.1P, which is critical for voice and video applications. Furthermore, a variety of link monitoring, troubleshooting, and reporting features increase network performance. Digital diagnostics enable network administrators to measure the quality of the optical connection and report it over the OAM and SNMP management. Link Loss Notification signals the fault to the management.
This IEEE 802.3ah solution can be managed via Graphical User Interfaces such as Focal Point, HPOV or Cisco Works as well as any web browser, telnet, or local serial command line interface, explain company representatives. Service providers can also gather information about customers' bandwidth and traffic utilization. Management security is assured by a variety of Transition Networks' security features, including Firewall (IP filtering), FilterMAC (MAC filtering), SNMP Lock (Complete SNMP lock), or local CLI lock (no local access).
The product has all typical features such as Auto-Negotiation, Autocross, Symmetrical or Asymmetrical Pause, and Automatic Link Restoration. The Automatic Link Restoration feature makes sure that once the fault condition is removed, no user intervention is ever required to bring the entire link back up again.
Transition's remotely managed 10/100/1000 media converter is available in two versions. Standalone and The Point System chassis card to fit any CPSMCxxxx chassis cabinets. In order to take advantage of all management benefits, Transition Networks recommends that these converters are used in pairs.