Hi Mike - I did dig this up on the AFC Web page:
"...With Release 7.1, AFC has added our unique Cellennia ASIC, developed to provide the UMC's ATM capability. It resides on the ADSL line cards and the Network Uplink cards, which may also serve as an ATM concentrator card. With this capability, the UMC has many choices to deliver ADSL services using ATM technology.
Edge Access ATM provides the first broadband delivery through the UMC 1000. This technology provides a very compelling ADSL solution. These include:
Edge Access ATM-TDM transport is transparent to customers ATM over any transport-ATM services can be provided over any transport-T1, HDSL, and Fiber Optics Aggregation of all remote and CO based Data services to one network Interface-the ability to groom all of the ATM traffic on to one interface saves time and money in deployment and network equipment costs Choice of either T1, OC3c, or even DS3 1 network uplinks ADSL full rate G.DMT and G.Lite solutions AFC's unique ADSL line cards with integrated splitters saving space, time to deploy, and overall cost of equipment..."
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I have been going through the GVN Web page to understand the capabilities of their equipment Vs other competitors.
I am no expert and still learning about the features. IMO there has been no commitment from either AFC or GVN to support "all" the major DSL varieties discussed in the CED article I posted up thread.
Obviously, this will be customer driven. I have been reviewing other IAD developers (i.e. PolyCom is one) to see their solution to this development.
IMO, the solution is to develop a box that can be upgraded through the network to upload any chipset into EPROM "on demand" determined by the type of packet sent down stream through the network. AFC and GVN seem to accomplish this with separate line cards. Other vendors build boards that have multiple chipset ROMs that reside on the motherboard.
Why not build a modular line card that can interrogate a library of standard loadable software "chip sets" that can be loaded into EPROM in either (1) a standard configuration setting or (2) on demand determined by the end user requirements (i.e. an intelligent switch).
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So far, it appears that AFC may be working towards such a model. The GVN IAD products do include an embedded WEB server which could do these functions but would need to operate much faster and more intelligently for any "on-demand" type processing to be handled.
The advantage that I can see is that in order to accomplish such sophisticated DSL routing, the GVN IAD product must work in conjunction with the UMC 1000 switch and be tightly
integrated together. IMO, it is possible that AFC & GVN could develop such a "smart" DSL switch much faster than an IAD only manufacture.
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The other factor to consider is the cost per line for such a "smart" DSL line. This type of equipment would only be cost effective to a CLEC or ISP where each DSL line may require different end-user specifications. The other IAD manufactures seem to be building specific application boxes that will handle at most two different DSL varieties. Their advantage is a lower cost per line.
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I believe AFC is on the right track with this modular approach to providing xDSL compatibility.
EKS |
