Cisco Systems Announces New and Enhanced Edge, Metro and Core Multiservice Optical Solution.

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Customers Benefit from End-to-End Carrier Ethernet Functionality, Increased Density for Voice Services and Enhanced Bandwidth Flexibility and Switching Capability in Core Networks

Cisco Systems(R) (NASDAQ:CSCO) today announced new and enhanced solutions for edge, metro and core multiservice optical networks. These solutions will help enable customers to cost-effectively provision, monitor and manage profitable new and existing services more efficiently from the edge to the core.

For the network edge, Cisco(R) introduced the Cisco ONS 15310-CL SONET Multiservice Platform and enhanced Cisco ONS 15302 and Cisco ONS 15305 SDH multiservice customer access platforms. For metro networks, new Carrier Ethernet functionality and high-density DS-3 solutions are being added to the Cisco ONS 15454 Multiservice Provisioning Platform (MSPP). For core networks, Cisco added a new any-service, any-port (ASAP) line card that helps enable software-selectable bandwidth and protocol options for the Cisco ONS 15600 Multiservice Switching Platform (MSSP), in addition to faster broadband switching functionality.

With the Cisco ONS 15310-CL, Synchronous Optical Network (SONET) customers can now deploy new services such as private-line and switched-Ethernet services that support link capacity adjustment scheme (LCAS), virtual concatenation (VCAT) and generic framing procedure (GFP) without having to redesign or disrupt their entire network. This compact, one-rack-unit edge platform is interoperable with existing Cisco ONS 15454 SONET MSPP infrastructures, making it a very economical choice at the network edge and suitable for either remote-terminal or customer-located applications. For Synchronous Digital Hierarchy (SDH) networks, the enhanced Cisco ONS 15302 and Cisco ONS 15305 platforms also now support private-line and switched-Ethernet services. These edge platforms are designed to be interoperable with existing Cisco ONS 15454 SDH MSPP infrastructures. Like all Cisco optical products, these new and enhanced access platforms can be managed by Cisco Transport Manager, which simplifies network management and monitoring with remote access and provisioning support.

"We utilize the Cisco optical switching platforms in our network because they offer us highly effective and economical ways to offer new services to our enterprise customers," said Barry Raterink, president of US Signal. "With the Cisco ONS 15310-CL, for example, we don't need to 'forklift' our existing transport network nor build out an overlay network because it coexists with our existing Cisco ONS 15454-based metro network. This gives us the ability to reach out further into access networks, offering our customers new services such as private-line and switched-Ethernet services that generate revenue for us, all with the familiar Cisco network management and infrastructure benefits. Plus, with the new enhancements on the Cisco ONS 15454 and the Cisco ONS 15600, US Signal will have a cost-effective, high-density DS-3 interface solution and a channelized interface for router WAN connectivity."

The Cisco ONS 15454 MSPP's enhancements include a new Carrier Ethernet (CE)-Series line card that supports LCAS, VCAT and GFP and new high-density DS-3 line cards. The CE-Series line card will help carriers to migrate to optimized data services from one platform. The high-density DS-3 line cards will help customers to deliver TDM services more cost-effectively and save termination costs and physical space, freeing up shelf slots for new service offerings.

A new ASAP line card for the Cisco ONS 15600 MSSP will expand the product's transport flexibility. This solution augments the existing OC-48 and OC-192 interfaces and adds OC-3, OC-12 and GFP-based Gigabit Ethernet bandwidth flexibility to service providers' core networks through small form-factor pluggable (SFP) optics. By using these multirate optical line cards with pluggable optics, customers are able to get a much lower first cost. In addition, because the optics expand system capacity, customers can improve multiservice efficiency and reduce capital costs. The new Cisco ONS 15600 MSSP single-slot cross-connect (SSXC) card is much faster and uses less power than the platform's current cross-connect card. The SSXC enables customers to transparently pass the overhead of SONET/SDH and supports more than 32 two-fiber bidirectional line-switched rings.

For more information about all of Cisco's optical networking solutions, visit: http://www.cisco/go/optical.

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