Tellabs enhances cross-connect

Tellabs is offering customers a way to add optical and data interfaces to its 5500 cross-connect, one of the company’s workhorse platforms.

In the second quarter, the company will ship the 5500 NGX, a shelf that brings optical and Gigabit Ethernet interfaces plus add-drop multiplexer functionality to the older 5500 platform.

“When you think of Tellabs as a company, [the 5500] has been their biggest product,” says Ron Kline, a program director with RHK. Tellabs claims there are more than 4,000 of the devices in incumbent carrier networks.

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Tellabs is offering customers a way to add optical and data interfaces to its 5500 cross-connect, one of the company’s workhorse platforms.

In the second quarter, the company will ship the 5500 NGX, a shelf that brings optical and Gigabit Ethernet interfaces plus add-drop multiplexer functionality to the older 5500 platform.

“When you think of Tellabs as a company, [the 5500] has been their biggest product,” says Ron Kline, a program director with RHK. Tellabs claims there are more than 4,000 of the devices in incumbent carrier networks.

The 5500 NGX shelf enables providers to add features without adding separate network elements and separate management platforms, Kline says. This can save space, power and staff resources, he says.

Tellabs describes the new shelf as the marriage of the 5500 and its 6400 transport switch that has the capacity to support up to 28 OC-12 or up to seven OC-48 interfaces per shelf. It supports Gigabit Ethernet via Ethernet-over-SONET interfaces.

The 5500 NGX is essentially a 6400 with a standard high-speed optical interface to connect to the 5500 platform. The hybrid platform can support interfaces ranging from DS-1 to OC-48.

The 5500 NGX supports "test access," which enables providers to look at individual circuits remotely without the need to place test sets on individual interfaces to troubleshoot problems. It also supports "transmuxing," which is a simplified way of converting and multiplexing circuits into different formats as they cross a network.

The 5500 NGX shelves are managed by the same software that manages the 5500, so carriers won’t have to retrain administrators, says Anna Reidy, a senior analyst with Current Analysis.

The device mixes transport of traffic with switching, which helps streamline networks, says RHK's Kline.

“Any time you integrate transport with switching, you save a ton of money because you eliminate pieces that are manually intensive, and they just cost less money than separate devices,” he says.

Competitor Alcatel sells conventional cross-connects like Tellabs’ 5500, but it has not added Ethernet support or the ability to handle circuits as small as DS-1s, says Reidy. Start-up Polaris has built a wide-band cross-connect from the ground up that supports only optical interfaces, Reidy says.

Pricing for the 5500 NGX is established on a case-by-case basis, Tellabs says.