Meriton Touts CET

OTTAWA -- Meriton Networks today announced that it will leverage its strengths in Agile Optical Networking to support converged Optical-Ethernet capabilities and enter the emerging Carrier Ethernet Transport (CET) market. CET combines the simplicity and cost-effectiveness of native Ethernet with the reliability and power of WDM to deliver unparalleled flexibility, efficiency and cost savings — particularly for interconnecting Gigabit Ethernet. Meriton Networks is announcing a multi-phase CET product delivery strategy that will extend its wavelength networking capabilities to more effectively deliver Ethernet transport bandwidth. These new capabilities are being added to Meriton’s 7200 OSP (Optical Switching Platform), an integrated switching and transport system.

Phase one of Meriton’s CET capabilities enables carriers to support high-density Gig E networking within the metro using sub-wavelength switching (SWS) and grooming of nine Gigabit Ethernet streams onto a 10 Gb/s wavelength. The capability of switching a Gig E path within the optical transport layer and maintaining the path throughout the entire network and assuring it with a Service Level Agreement (SLA) makes it ideal for wholesale interconnect services.

Phase two will introduce support for Carrier Ethernet Tunnel switching and aggregation for local handoff. The first Ethernet tunnel technology to be supported by Meriton will be Provider Backbone Transport (PBT), which is currently undergoing ratification within the IEEE, under the proposed name of Provider Backbone Bridging – Traffic Engineering (PBB-TE).

“We have listened closely to the requirements of our major carrier customers, and we agree that there are powerful advantages to keeping a Gig E path in the sub-wavelength domain across the optical transport network and opting for tunnel processing only when necessary,” said Bill Gartner, chief operating officer for Meriton Networks. “The advantage is a simpler network, delivering better performance since fewer layer 2 queues are traversed. A key benefit to the Meriton 7200 OSP is its ability to scale to 320 Gb/s in a single shelf platform. With the pending explosion of video services, this scale quickly becomes an essential part of any metro node implementation.”

Meriton Networks Inc.