Equipment vendors are beginning to unveil new optical and carrier Ethernet products in advance of next week’s Supercomm trade show.
Fujitsu Network Communications is introducing hardware and software upgrades to its Flashwave 9500 packet optical platform today that constitute what it calls EoX for “Ethernet over everything.” Cards inserted in the 9500, available this year, allow it to carry Ethernet over fiber, copper, Sonet, PDH (T-1s and T-3s, for example) and optical wavelengths, translating the services for whatever medium is available, broadly expanding Ethernet’s addressable footprint.
Fujitsu is also adding connection-oriented Ethernet to its 4100 ES, transforming that multiservice provisioning platform into a sort of “micro packet optical” product for access networks.
Cisco is adding IPv6 capabilities to its core and edge routers.
Extreme Networks is introducing a four-slot version of its BlackDiamond 20808 Ethernet transport platform. Available in next year’s first quarter, the new quarter-rack 20804 is built for 10-Gb/s aggregation while the 20808 sits in the metro core. The gear includes hardware support for multicasting, allowing carriers to deliver premium video alongside best-effort video.
Infinera has already said it will unveil its new metro product at Supercomm next week, though an existing customer, ITC Deltacom, has already announced having deployed it.
Meanwhile, Hatteras Networks is presenting a range of new gear, including a 40-Gb/s multiservice platform for Ethernet over copper and fiber, customer premises gear for bonding T-1s and E-1s and mobile backhaul gear that simultaneously supports native legacy and Ethernet traffic over copper.
And Force10 Networks is adding Ethernet products for middle-mile applications.
More product announcements are sure to follow in the days ahead.
