RICHARDSON, Texas -- Fujitsu Network Communications Inc., a leading supplier of IT and wireline/wireless networking solutions, announced today a series of significant service, functionality, and density enhancements to its flagship FLASHWAVE® 4500 Multiservice Switching Platform (MSSP). The addition of IEEE 802.17 Resilient Packet Ring (RPR) efficiencies, DS3 transmux capabilities, and double the OC-48 interface density will help keep Fujitsu at the top of the North American SONET/SDH market. Fujitsu has held the top spot in this market for 13 consecutive quarters according to 3Q05 Dell’Oro Group research, and currently maintains a market lead over its nearest competitor by over 12 percent.

With this release, SONET, Ethernet over SONET (EoS), RPR, Generic Framing Procedure (GFP), Virtual Concatenation (VCAT), and high/low order grooming and switching capabilities have been combined on a single, high-capacity platform. This powerful mix of service delivery technologies allows carriers to offer a wide variety of traditional DS1, DS3 and OC-n private line services, plus carrier-class 10 Mbps to Gigabit Ethernet Private Line (EPL) services, from a single network.

“Our FLASHWAVE 4500 Multiservice Provisioning Platform (MSPP) offers the ultimate in TDM and packet convergence by combining the legendary reliability, availability and Operations, Administration, Maintenance & Provisioning (OAM&P) of SONET with the robust efficiencies and multipoint connectivity required for provisioning packet-based services,” said Bill Erickson, senior vice president of sales and marketing at Fujitsu Network Communications. “Its flexible architecture supports a smooth migration path to an MSSP configuration and allows carrier-class Ethernet services to be delivered over existing SONET networks.”

With the addition of a new 12-port DS3 Transmux interface card, carriers can leverage the VT1.5 switch fabric of the FLASHWAVE 4500 platform to maximize the efficiency of TDM circuits. Each DS3 Transmux card can gather hundreds of low capacity VT1.5 circuits from DS1 interface cards or poorly utilized DS3 or OC-n connections, and multiplex them into fully utilized, high capacity STS-1 payloads. By transmitting a lesser quantity of fully utilized STS-1 payloads instead of many partially utilized payloads, carriers can reduce their Interoffice Facility (IOF) transport costs. Consolidating circuits in this manner before they enter a Digital Cross-connect System (DCS) also maximizes its switching efficiency and helps carriers postpone or eliminate the costly capital expense of adding or expanding a DCS.

Fujitsu Network Communications Inc.