Narad Announces "EtherNode" Switched HFC Architecture

Narad Networks unveiled its new "EtherNode" switched hybrid fiber coax (HFC) architecture designed to extend Ethernet services to business customers from any multiple system operator (MSO) fiber network over any available medium, including fiber, coax, or wireless.



Narad said that in cases where business fiber or metro fiber passes near the end of a coax trunk, its new EtherNodes could switch optical Ethernet capacity onto coax trunks with minimal -- perhaps even zero plant downtime. The company argues that its "deep" Fiber To The Node (FTTN) architecture is a significant advance over historical Narad FTTN insofar as it no longer relies upon insertion of the Narad signal at the HFC node. With EtherNodes, the fiber in HFC can be found at any depth and in any location on the network.



Additionally, Narad EtherNodes can now be built in a variety of new, non-coax specific architectures. Where MSOs want to maximize business services capacity with minimal expense, Narad now supports deep fiber architectures, including Fiber-To-The-Curb (FTTC), and Fiber-To-The-Premise (FTTP).



"Over the years MSOs have deployed a significant number of CWDM-based fiber drops to serve individual enterprise customers. This consumes one gigabit of capacity and two lambdas for a customer that uses only a small fraction of this capacity. By inserting an FTTxSWITCH on this existing fiber, the same fiber can serve a large number of customers. MSOs that are running low on lambdas in nodes with lots of business customers can now use fiber EtherNodes to continue to expand their customer base with no new lambdas and significantly less construction required," said Chuck Kaplan, COO of Narad Networks.



Narad's new FTTxSWITCH, with support for deep EtherNodes in FTTN, FTTC and FTTP configurations will be available in limited quantities in October 2006.

http://www.naradnetworks.com