New Mini Optical MSPP for Wireless Backhaul and Metro Networks

PETAH TIKVA, Israel - ECI Telecom (NASDAQ: ECIL), a global provider of access and transport networking infrastructure equipment, has announced its BroadGate®-30 (BG™-30), a miniature Multi-Service Provisioning Platform (MSPP), designed for wireless backhaul and metro networks supporting a capacity up to 2.5Gb/s. The cost-effective and highly scalable architecture of the BG-30 enables operators to easily provision new services and maintain high network resiliency.

The BG-30 is one of the smallest optical service access platforms on the market with a unique, cost-effective architecture based on ECI’s build-as-you-grow™ offerings. To meet the increasing demands from residential and business users for higher bandwidth, operators can easily upgrade the network capacity to 2.5Gb/s with a single card replacement, and simply and seamlessly add an expansion unit with a wider range of interfaces and services, such as Ethernet, SDH, PDH and PCM services.

The BG-30 is the newest product in the BG product line and is also fully interoperable with ECI’s XDM® optical platforms, providing operators with the ability to offer data and legacy services from customer premises to regional DWDM sites. Additionally, it offers full remote management capabilities through ECI’s LightSoft® network management system. As a fully redundant box, the BG-30 allows for further CAPEX and OPEX savings with a high level of network resiliency.

“Optical networks demand is strong in many emerging markets around the world. In India, for instance, we expect annual ON spending to approach the $500 million per year mark by 2011, from less than half that figure in 2005. Traffic growth in both mobile core and backhaul networks will be a key component of this growth, and rising demand from alternative network operators – such as utilities, defense, and research networks – will also contribute to growth,” commented Matt Walker, Senior Analyst at Ovum-RHK. He added: “There is a real need in emerging markets for small-sized optical edge devices (OEDs), or ‘mini-MSPPs’, that are flexible, scalable, and resilient enough to support data and legacy services in remote, rural, or low-density environments.”

The combination of the BG-30’s high resiliency and network capacity makes it suitable both for metro networks and wireless operators and for alternative carriers, such as utility operators. The BG-30 is particularly attractive in markets experiencing rapid growth and in networks that are prone to numerous power outages and include a large number of unmanned sites, which are effectively dealt with by the BG-30’s redundancy features.

“Our latest addition to our BroadGate MSPP family provides customers with greater flexibility to meet the needs of any size network and an extensive number of services without the high costs or need for equipment replacement,” said Eyal Shaked, Executive Vice President and General Manager of ECI Telecom’s Transport Networking Division (TND). “The BG-30 will increase our opportunities and further strengthen our leadership position in emerging markets, where networks are struggling to keep up with the fast growth in demand"

The BG-30 will be available in Q3 2007.