RAD Data Communications has introduced the ETX-204A, a carrier ethernet demarcation device that delivers SLA-based Layer 2 and Layer 3 business services to the customer premises over native ethernet access. It provides delineation between the user network and the transport network for those services, and for mobile backhaul.
The company claims that with extensive service delivery, performance monitoring, and service protection/redundancy capabilities, the ETX-204A transports up to one gigabit of user throughput with end-to-end monitoring to ensure SDH/SONET-like performance and 99.9% reliability.
The company said that the device handles multi-priority traffic while ensuring latency, jitter, and packet delivery performance on a per-flow basis. The ETX-204A has traffic engineering capabilities, including remarking of Level 2 and Level 3 traffic based on a number of factors, ensuring traffic prioritisation not only at the demarcation point, but across the network.
As a mobile backhaul transport gateway, it reduces backhaul costs by combining smart demarcation with network synchronisation capabilities in a single device, efficiently managing mobile broadband traffic from the IP NodeB or LTE eNodeB to the network core with SLA assurance.
According to RAD, the ETX-204A delivers clock recovery and distribution using Precision Timing Protocol, Synchronous Ethernet (Sync-E) and a built-in input/output clock interface. It also provides flexibility in supporting the simultaneous use of different clock transfer methodologies, such as employing 1588v2 to receive the clock from the network and distributing it to the cell-site with Sync-E. RAD’s EtherAccess feature set is incorporated into the ETX-204A.
Eitan Schwartz, vice president of ethernet access and Pseudowire at RAD, said: “By delivering the same timing accuracy and reliability as experienced over SONET or SDH networks, the ETX-204A enables cellular providers and carriers whose transport networks are utilised by cellular providers to migrate multiple generations of mobile backhaul traffic to packet switched networks.
“In this migration, mobile operators and transport providers can ensure service continuity and eliminate service disruptions, impaired cell handoffs, and excessive dropped calls.”
