Meriton proposes a plan for service providers to build high-speed metropolitan service networks
Meriton Networks, a maker of metropolitan-area optical switches, last week proposed a plan for service providers to build high-speed metropolitan service networks and unveiled products to support the plan.
The vendor’s high-speed metropolitan (HSM) services architecture is intended to provide carriers a way to deliver services such as optical Ethernet, SONET/SDH and storage-area networks without the expense, operational complexity and long provisioning times of dedicated optical networks.
The HSM architecture only can be realized through the deployment of Meriton’s products – the 7200 Optical Add/Drop Switch (OADX) for the network core, and the 3300 Optical Services Unit (OSU), which was rolled out last week. The OSU is an optical multiplexing device for the access network that collects and aggregates traffic at the customer premises or the carrier’s point of presence.
The OSU features sub-rate multiplexing cards with interface ports ranging from T-1/E-1 up to Gigabit Ethernet and Fibre Channel rates. It supports both coarse and dense wavelength division multiplexing.
The OSU hands wavelengths to the HSM metropolitan core, which OADX anchors. With optical amplifiers and dispersion compensation modules – such as Meriton’s new 1450 Optical Fiber Amplifier (OFA) and 1100 Dispersion Compensation Module (DCM), which also debuted last week-the Meriton architecture can be extended beyond the MAN and into the regional realm, the company says.
Meriton also says HSM can reduce wavelength service provisioning costs by 70% over other architectures.
The cost of a 2.5G bit/sec wavelength currently costs about $25,000 per month.
While Meriton is addressing the cost and complexity issue, analysts say there is an additional challenge it might not have control over: carrier inertia.
“Carriers are not very aggressive about service innovation,” says Michael Kennedy, president of Network Strategy Partners. “It’s a threat to their current services.”
Nortel made a similar shared-wavelength service pitch 18 months ago that caused barely a ripple in the carrier services market. Recent advances in optical technology in the system and component level – some of which found their way into Meriton’s products – might stir them to action, Kennedy says.
The 3300 OSU is available for trials and will be generally available later this quarter. The 1450 OFA and 1100 DCM lines are available now.
