Fujitsu Enhances FLASHWAVE 4500 MSPP with VCAT, GFP

Fujitsu Network Communications is enhancing its FLASHWAVE 4500 Multiservice Provisioning Platform (MSPP) with new capabilities for transporting Ethernet services efficiently across a SONET-based infrastructure. These new service transport capabilities include support for Virtual Concatenation (VCAT) and Generic Framing Procedure (GFP) to enable efficient transport of 10 Mbps, 100 Mbps and Gigabit Ethernet services. Support for Four Fiber - Bidirectional Line Switched Ring (4F-BLSR) applications at an OC-192 rate provides additional capacity and a highly robust protection option for service providers.



The VCAT capability enables a full line rate Gigabit Ethernet circuit to be mapped efficiently into 21 STS-1 timeslots of 51.8 Mbps each. Fujitsu said competing platforms without the VCAT capability would map the same circuit into 12 timeslots (an STS-12c) by rate-limiting it to 622 Mbps, or 24 timeslots (an STS-24c) that consume 1.244 Gbps of bandwidth, when only 1.08 Gbps is needed.



VCAT further improves efficiency because timeslots do not need to be contiguous, providing the flexibility for adding high-speed data circuits to busy networks that have experienced a high degree of churn. For example, a full wire speed Gigabit Ethernet circuit previously requiring 24 STS timeslots in one group (an STS-24c) can now be mapped into seven groups of three STS timeslots (an STS-3c-7v) -- no matter where the spare bandwidth resides.



Generic Framing Procedure (GFP), which has emerged as an industry standard for the encapsulation of data protocols, helps service providers create flexible Ethernet service offerings. Additionally, GFP provides increased robustness for Ethernet services by providing fault information, including Client Signal Failure (CSF) notifications, through its management overhead.



Fujitsu has also added Ethernet alarming and Performance Monitoring (PM) abilities, enabling FLASHWAVE 4500 nodes to monitor the status of LAN and WAN links and determine if user-selectable PM thresholds have been reached. In the event of unacceptable performance or complete Loss of Signal (LOS), the system can generate an alert or alarm similar to a SONET Alarm Indication Signal (AIS) to notify the carrier and end customer (as desired). Finally, the addition of OC-192 4F-BLSR capabilities on the FLASHWAVE 4500 platform allows carriers to build high capacity ring networks that can survive multiple simultaneous fiber cuts. http://www.fujitsu.com/us/telecom