October 16, 2007 -- As a way to give service providers the ability to match bandwidth to the precise needs of their customers, Aktino has introduced asymmetric bandwidth capabilities for its broadband over copper Carrier Ethernet products.
According to the company, the functionality, enabled by a software upgrade to the company's AK3000/4000/5000 platform, breaks with the industry's emphasis on symmetric transmission for business applications by providing backhaul over existing, bonded copper wiring infrastructure.
The asymmetric functionality is now available for the company's AK3000 and AK4000 platforms and will soon be available for the AK5000. The AK3000 provides long-reach DS3 (45 Mbit/sec) services, and the AK4000 up to 50 Mbit/sec of Carrier Ethernet, while the AK5000 is a scalable, shelf-based Carrier Ethernet platform for larger installations.
According to the company, while DS3 and Ethernet services are traditionally symmetric, there are still many applications in which the downstream bandwidth is entirely consumed, while much of the upstream bandwidth goes unused. A prime example is IP- or ATM- based DSLAM backhaul, because residential and business DSL services are typically asymmetric. Cell site backhaul and residential and business video transmission are other key applications in which the ability to enable asymmetric bandwidth will be desirable for service providers, notes the company.
The new asymmetric functionality leverages the company's MIMO on DMTTM (multiple in, multiple out on discrete multi-tone) technology to double the downstream bandwidth per copper pair beyond the already high symmetric MIMO on DMT bandwidth. The result, according to the company, is nearly 7 Mbit/sec of bandwidth per pair to the edge of the carrier serving area (CSA). This figure represents 600 to 900 percent of the bandwidth provided by legacy HDSL technology, contends the company.
"This gives the service provider the ability to easily configure the upstream and downstream rates and really tailor them to the needs of their particular applications, ensuring that all the available bandwidth is utilized as efficiently as possible," says Hossam Salib, senior vice president of marketing for Aktino.
According to the company, because of the relationship between transmission rate and distance, the asymmetric feature can be leveraged to maximize whichever of these elements is key to the specific application. For example, a service provider using the AK3000 to provide DS3 symmetric service at CSA range can use the asymmetric feature to provide that bandwidth beyond the CSA range without the need for a repeater. Another option is to reduce the number of bonded pairs needed to provide the same capacity at a shorter range.
Such a scenario requires as few as seven pairs of copper to provide a DS3 and as few as four pairs to provide 25 Mbit/sec of Carrier Ethernet bandwidth, says the company. Thus, the copper pairs once required to provide transport or access bandwidth can be freed for either increasing transport bandwidth or providing more access bandwidth.
"We are seeing major service providers express extremely positive reactions to this feature, and several are interested in deployment, particularly since this can be deployed quickly via a software upgrade," continues Salib. "This is yet another example of Aktino leading the way in demonstrating the power of the existing copper infrastructure and showing carriers how to maximize it for greater revenue."