ACTON, Mass. -- Appian Communications, providers of carrier class optical switchingtechnology, today announced a major enhancement to its Optical ServicesActivation Platform (OSAP), enabling companies to extend Ethernet LANfunctionality across their carrier’s broader WAN, metro and transportinfrastructure.

Appian’s newly released ‘Virtual Ethernet Ring’technology allows carriers to offer Virtual Private LAN and Private LANservices which extend the simplicity and multipoint connectivity of acustomer’s Ethernet LAN across a carrier’s existing metro, regional orlong haul SONET/SDH network. Carriers benefit from the revenue andprofit potential of next-generation packet services that are flexible,scalable and carrier quality.

With Virtual Ethernet Rings, multiple customer and partner sites canconnect to the Virtual Private LAN or Private LAN service throughstandard Ethernet connections. The result is what appears to be anextension of the company’s LAN, its own private Ethernet domain that maystretch across continents or as far as the carrier’s network allows. Thepioneering work on Virtual Ethernet Ring technology has also helpedAppian to win top honours at this year’s SuperComm conference in the US,for access networking technology for public networks.

Michael Howard, principal analyst and co-founder of Infonetics Research,comments, “all Ethernet services are not equal, and Appian continues toshow leadership in the breadth of its Ethernet-over-SONET/SDH servicescapabilities. Premium services like Ethernet Private Line, Ethernetaccess to existing frame relay/ATM/IP services, and now resilient,multipoint Virtual Ethernet Rings, are key for carriers to profit fromthe migration to next-generation packet services.”

Appian Communications Inc.