As each month passes, so Redback Networks Inc. looks more and more like an Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE: ALU) IP wannabe.

Redback, now part of the growing Ericsson AB (Nasdaq: ERIC) empire, has already pitched its SmartEdge edge router as an alternative to AlcaLu's widely deployed 7750 Service Router. (See Redback Beats AlcaLu to French Deal.)

Now it's launching a family of carrier Ethernet products, starting with the SM 480 Smart Ethernet Switch, which, says senior strategy director Alexis Berthillier, "is going after Alcatel-Lucent" -- in particular, the giant vendor's 7450 Ethernet Service Switch. (See Redback Unveils SM 480, AlcaLu Beefs Up Its Routers, AlcaLu Tops $1B in IP Gear Sales, KPN Picks Alcatel Ethernet Gear, AlcaLu Wins Shanghai Deal, and Chunghwa Picks AlcaLu Ethernet.)

The move is all part of Redback's efforts to pack a bigger punch in the Internet Protocol (IP) and Ethernet markets, where both fixed and mobile carriers are spending increasing amounts of their capex dollars: According to Heavy Reading forecasts, the market for metro Ethernet equipment will more than double in the next four years, from $2.3 billion in 2008 to $4.7 billion in 2012. (See Redback Targets 30% Market Share, Redback Goes on the Offensive, and Ethernet Expo Europe: Switch/Router Update.)

Redback says its SmartEdge is already being used for Ethernet traffic aggregation, but the edge router isn't optimized, either technically or in terms of price, for the Ethernet market. "Ethernet transport has been a hole in the Ericsson portfolio that needed to be filled," says Berthillier.

And while the market for Ethernet aggregation switches is already very competitive, with Cisco Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: CSCO), Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. , and Juniper Networks Inc. (NYSE: JNPR) just some of the other active players in addition to Alcatel-Lucent, the Redback team believes it can use Ericsson's large installed carrier customer base to quickly build market share.

The SM 480 Smart Ethernet Switch
To develop its switch, Redback has taken a leaf out of its main rival's book. In the same way that Alcatel-Lucent simplified its 7750 Service Router to create the Ethernet-oriented 7450, so Redback is subtracting from its SmartEdge line to create the SM family, leaving out Layer 3 VPNs, broadband remote access server (B-RAS) capability, and features such as Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) and Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) support.

But having such a box seems sensible, given the publicity surrounding carrier Ethernet. "It would be a mistake not having a carrier Ethernet product," says Michael Howard, principal analyst with Infonetics Research Inc.

That kind of reasoning even got Juniper Networks Inc. (NYSE: JNPR), a long-time Ethernet holdout, into the game with its EX series. (See Juniper Storms Into Ethernet Switching.)

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So what's Redback offering? The company isn't stressing speeds and feeds with its switch, though -- if you're really interested -- it's got 480 Gbit/s of backplane capacity, and can handle 256,000 VLANs, according to the vendor's spec sheet.

Instead, the company is pitching the SM 480 as a chance for carriers to finally start converging their wireline and wireless networks.

The introduction of Ethernet into wireless backhaul makes it more feasible to join wireless and wireline nodes into single SmartEdge or SM boxes, Redback says. So, one box could, for example, handle metro access traffic for a wireline network and backhaul traffic for a wireless network.

The idea has been there for some time, but getting it to happen is another matter.

"It's the promise of IP routers that you can put business services, consumer broadband, and IP backhaul on the same route, but so far, the carriers aren't doing it," Infonetics' Howard says.

This is where Ericsson comes in, because Redback hopes to play off Ericsson's wireless presence to make some of this convergence happen.

"Cisco and Juniper are not very strong on the wireless side. Alcatel-Lucent has some more capabilities there, but not the position that Ericsson has," says Steve Murray, Redback's vice president of product management.

Redback also hopes to play a role as wireless operators move subscriber management -- currently the task of the gateway GPRS support node (GGSN) -- further to the edge of the network. That's already been happening on the wireline side, but not in wireless.

Big strategy talk aside, Redback's Berthillier believes the SM 480 will have an edge over AlcaLu's 7450 by having an in-house policy manager. "The more control you have, the better," says the former Juniper and Alcatel (TiMetra) man, who notes that AlcaLu's policy control is developed by partners and integrated, though that's something that's changing at Redback's key rival. (See AlcaLu Touts IP Upgrades.)

Berthillier says Redback has an ongoing trial with a Tier 1 carrier with fixed and mobile operations that will deploy the product in its live network during the third quarter this year, when the product will become commercially available.

And the Redback team is already working on extending the SM family: Berthillier says that a smaller version, possibly the SM 240 (240 Gbit/s of capacity), will be launched in 2009, and a bigger, terabit version after that.

— Ray Le Maistre, International News Editor, and Craig Matsumoto, West Coast Editor, Light Reading

Interested in learning more on this topic? Then come to Ethernet Expo 2008, a conference and exposition examining the latest trends in the carrier Ethernet market. To be staged in New York, October 20-22, the conference will also host Light Reading's third annual Ethernet Service Provider of the Year Awards for North America. Admission is free for attendees meeting our prequalification criteria. For more information, or to register, click here.

Interested in learning more on this topic? Then come to Backhaul Strategies for Mobile Operators, which will provide a unique perspective on the progress that North America's carrier and vendor community is making in relieving the so-called "backhaul bottleneck" in mobile networks. To be staged in New York, September 23, admission is free for attendees meeting our prequalification criteria. For more information, or to register, click here.