16 January 2007
Nortel wins piece of 21CN action
Nortel will be one of two suppliers of a carrier scale Ethernet solution for BT’s 21st Century Network (21CN). According to the company, BT aims to use its Ethernet technology to transport high bandwidth services – from mission critical business applications to full streaming video.
BT has selected Nortel’s Metro Ethernet Routing Switch 8600 and Metro Ethernet Services Unit 1850 for the Ethernet component of its 21CN. Both components are based on Provider Backbone Bridging Traffic Engineering (PBB-TE), an emerging IEEE standard that incorporates a set of enhancements to Ethernet known as Provider Backbone Transport. This allows the use of Ethernet for a carrier class transport network.
PBB-TE is believed to bring control to data paths within very large carrier networks, enabling true quality of service, meaningful service level agreements and the ability to set aside specific paths for communications, increasing network performance while providing carrier grade resiliency.
”We have been anticipating the widespread deployment of Ethernet in our 21CN architecture for a while but have been waiting for development to help make the technology viable for deployment in carrier grade networks,” said Matt Beal, director core convergence, BT Wholesale.
Author
Graham Pitcher
Supporting Information
Websites
http://www.btplc.com
http://www.nortel.com
Companies
BT Group plc
Nortel Networks plc
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