Cisco Boosts IP Next-Generation Network Carrier Ethernet Design to Enable the Connected Life

New Capabilities Enable SONET/SDH-like Service Level Agreements to Help Ensure Customer Satisfaction

SAN JOSE, Calif. - Cisco® today announced the Cisco ME 3400-24FS, an enhancement to the Carrier Ethernet portfolio of its IP Next-Generation Network (IP NGN) architecture. The ME 3400 Series is designed to enable operators to deliver the “Connected Life,” extending fiber-to-the-home apartment buildings and other multi-tenant units, allowing deployment of more services more quickly -- with lower operational expenses and faster time-to-market. Cisco also announced enhancements to its IP NGN Carrier Ethernet Design. These innovations are designed to enable extension of 50-millisecond (ms) resiliency from core to premise, increase scalability and resiliency, and provide new instrumentation for measuring customer service-level agreements (SLAs).

“With the target to cover two million households for triple-play services on our Carrier Ethernet network, quality of experience is of utmost importance. Given the growth of traffic and subscribers, working to ensure it is an ongoing challenge,” said Ricky Wong, chairman of HKBN. “These new innovations from Cisco will allow us to build on the capabilities of our existing network to help ensure that we are able to serve our customers needs now and well into the future.”
NEW ME 3400-24FS - Extending Ethernet Fiber to the Home

The Cisco ME 3400-24FS Series switch is a cost-optimized platform with a smaller form factor to deliver fiber-based networks to residents of multi-tenant units (MTUs). Its higher density is ideal for building basements and it enables pay-as-you-grow capabilities for low-population areas. It also features extended in-building reach with new flexible port options including fiber and copper and greater visibility and control of bandwidth for customized service bundles. Using the ME 3400, providers are able to offer pinpoint troubleshooting, delay-free access to personalized content and advanced entertainment service delivery unrestrained by distance.
New SONET/SDH-type Service-Level Agreement (SLA) Capabilities for Carrier Ethernet Design

50ms Resiliency from Core to Premise

Cisco has further enhanced the IP NGN Carrier Ethernet design to bring SONET/SDH service level agreements (SLAs) to Ethernet, announcing enhancements designed to enable extension of 50ms recovery from the core to the customer. This network resiliency is supported in mesh or ring topologies and is applicable across the Cisco Carrier Ethernet portfolio with a simple software upgrade.

Enhancing Operations, Administration and Management (OAM) and IP Service-Level Agreement (SLA) with New Embedded Event Manager (EEM) Complementing the comprehensive MPLS OAM, Ethernet OAM and Ethernet/IP SLA agent software on Cisco Carrier Ethernet platforms, Cisco also introduced the Embedded Event Manager (EEM), to automate proactive network troubleshooting of Carrier Ethernet deployments. This software enhancement enables providers to have the network self-monitor and self-correct in order to improve quality of the customer experience, reduce service outages and resolve issues faster, while giving them visibility to the business impact of network outages.

Enhancing Video Quality with IPTV SLA

Cisco also today announced IPTV SLA, providing new levels of visibility for video traversing Ethernet networks via IP multicast. The IPTV SLA software solution enables providers to look inside a MPEG packet to determine if a video problem is due to video encoding or a network transmission issue. Using IPTV SLA, providers can immediately identify the exact channels and multicast groups affected, as well as the problem location in the network and number of subscribers impacted. This enables providers to quickly correct video problems with the objective of reducing customer calls into the provider call center.

EANTC Carrier Ethernet Architecture Validation for IPTV

A recent test from independent laboratory European Advanced Networking Test Center AG (EANTC) validates the scalability of the Cisco IP NGN Carrier Ethernet Design and Cisco Video Quality Experience (VQE) technology. The scalability test loaded the Carrier Ethernet network with one million emulated subscribers, 200 standard-definition channels, 20 high-definition channels and showed excellent performance and rapid network failure recovery. The test for VQE focused on video error repair resulting in perfect and consistent video quality even with 10 percent packet loss. This is a tenfold improvement over DSL alone. As the test notes, “The solution was impressive and its usage well thought-out. VQE considered both the user’s immediate needs for a good quality of service and the service provider’s need to maintain statistics on the QOS provided to the users. It was most certainly not planned this way, but this final test showed how a true end-to-end solution should function - all the way from the service source to the subscriber at home.” A full copy of the report is available from Cisco at http://www.cisco.com/en/US/netsol/ns610/networking_solutions_solution_category.html.