A lcatel plans to unveil the fifth version of its DSL access multiplexer this week, a unit that adds a significant amount of capacity and also positions the company to step into the increasingly hot video services market. The 7301 Advanced Services Access Manager is built as a derivative of the company's workhorse, the 7300 multiplexer, but on a much larger scale. "Bandwidth demand is on the rise," said Jay Fausch, senior director of marketing for Alcatel's broadband division. "We're not just seeing fatter and fatter content―we're starting to see the effect of multi-PC locations." In raw capacity, the 7301 uses a 170 Gb/s backplane to handle about 30 times the bandwidth and five times the number of users as the 7300. A fully loaded 7301 accommodates about 10,000 users. Upgrading from the 7300 requires replacing a network termination card on the main shelf and an extender card in each additional shelf, plus a software upgrade. The new DSLAM can be used for a number of applications, such as an aggregation point for other DSLAMs."You could have the six nodes feeding into a hub and those six nodes could have nodes hanging off of them," Fausch said.
展开▼
