Cisco Enhances IP NGN Carrier Ethernet Design for Video Services

Telenor Leads Adoption of Cisco 7600 Series 40G Line Card by Delivering Services for Consumers and Businesses over Carrier Ethernet

SAN JOSE, Calif. - Cisco today announced the availability of Carrier Ethernet innovations that help service providers offer a complete set of compelling services for their customers’ Connected Life at home, at work and on the move. These solutions center on the Cisco Internet Protocol Next-Generation Network (IP NGN) Carrier Ethernet design and numerous key products that service providers have deployed to scale current services and quickly enable new ones.

Bandwidth demands are surging due to the increased adoption of consumer and business services. The “Cisco Visual Networking Index (VNI) Forecast and Methodology, 2007-2012” forecasts IP traffic to increase sixfold between 2007 and 2012, with video representing more than half the consumer traffic. Similarly, mobile data is expected to grow by 125 percent from 2007 to 2012. To meet such dramatic increases in demand, many service providers are turning to Carrier Ethernet to significantly expand their network capacities and enable them to take advantage of this opportunity.

“The overall service provider edge and Ethernet markets are seeing sizable expansion as providers prepare their networks to handle the growing traffic demands,” said Ray Mota, chief strategist and president of consulting at Synergy Research. “Our research shows that many providers around the globe are responding favorably to Cisco’s encompassing approach to addressing these requirements, as evident by Cisco extending its market share leadership in both markets and Cisco’s service provider edge share, in particular, growing by a full 5 points to 57.8 percent since the first quarter of 2007.”

The Cisco Carrier Ethernet design represents key elements of the Cisco IP NGN architecture that helps enable consistent service delivery that can be optimized to meet specific demands. The most recent innovations consist of:

Optimized Business and Consumer Video Services with New Innovations for the Cisco 7600, 4500 and ME 3400 Series

Cisco has doubled aggregation service capacity with a new Ethernet Series Plus 40G line card for the Cisco 7600 Series Routers, further extending the return on investment of this market-leading platform, of which more than 70,000 units have been deployed worldwide. The Cisco 7600 Series 40G line card delivers line-rate multicast and unicast along with per-subscriber hierarchical quality of service (QoS). This doubles the Cisco 7600 Series Routers’ rich-services capability and helps enable service providers to rapidly deploy new services.

This innovation extends the Cisco Internet Protocol over dense wavelength-division multiplexing (IPoDWDM) capability to the Cisco 7600 Series Router, enabling IPoDWDM in aggregation, at the edge and in the core of a service provider’s IP NGN network. Cisco recently announced IPoDWDM enhancements to its CRS-1 Carrier Routing System and XR 12000 Series Routers.

Additionally, Cisco announced enhancements to two key Ethernet access platforms. The Cisco ME 4500 Series increases platform switching capacity by 2.5 times to a total of 160 Gigabits per second (Gbps) and increased its per-slot capacity four-fold to 24 Gbps while adding increased service delivery capability, investment protection, simplified operations, and a green footprint.. The Cisco ME 3400E Series, a next generation of the Cisco ME 3400 Carrier Ethernet Access Switches, is designed to enhance availability, flexibility, manageability and security for Ethernet business services.

These enhancements build on an already video-optimized Cisco IP NGN Carrier Ethernet design, which today offers visual quality experience (VQE), video connection admission control (CAC) and video monitoring to help ensure a high quality of experience for the consumer.

Broadband Mobility with new Cisco MWR 2941 and Cisco 7600

Cisco introduced a new cell-site router, the Cisco Mobile Wireless Router (MWR) 2941, which extends the Cisco mobile-transport-over-pseudowire (MToP) solution and supports the seamless backhaul of IP radio-access network (RAN) traffic from the cell site over Carrier Ethernet. The Cisco MWR 2941 thus makes possible a cost-effective fixed-mobile convergence.

This new platform is a key component of the Cisco MToP solution, which also includes the Cisco 7600 Series Router. It allows operators to backhaul 2G, 3G and evolving 4G mobile traffic from the cell site over Carrier Ethernet. The increasingly popular approach of using Ethernet for mobile backhaul dramatically improves the cost-effectiveness of service providers’ operations while providing a foundation for richer mobile services and seamless fixed-mobile convergence.

Service-level agreement to deliver carrier-class availability

Cisco has also announced a network-availability service-level agreement (SLA) for its Carrier Ethernet solution based on a foundation of lifecycle support services. This contractual agreement between Cisco and service providers offers assurance that best practices are being implemented to optimize network performance and operational efficiencies.

Telenor Deploys Cisco 7600 Series 40G Carrier Ethernet Infrastructure

Cisco IP NGN Carrier Ethernet technologies integrated directly into Cisco 7600 40G line cards enable service providers like Telenor to offer “any-play” services as demand increases for converged voice, video, data and mobility services. Telenor Sweden AB will use the Cisco 7600 Series 40G line cards to provide Gigabit Ethernet and 10 Gigabit Ethernet aggregation services on the company’s installed base of Cisco 7600 Series Routers.

Lars-Åke Norling, head of networking at Telenor, said: “Cisco is giving us the ability to converge our networks, so we can deliver all services, for both consumer and business customers, over one common platform. This development gives us a clear migration path and increased return on investment for our Cisco infrastructure, which will help us reduce operating costs and deliver a consistently high quality of experience to our customers.”

“Network convergence is now more widely accepted by service providers to efficiently and cost-effectively provide converged voice, video, data and mobility services,” said Kelly Ahuja, vice president and general manager of the service provider routing technology group at Cisco. “Furthermore, service providers want to achieve additional cost reductions by using IP next-generation networks to backhaul wireless and mobile traffic, thus reducing the need to continue investing in legacy TDM and ATM network infrastructures.”