Making a connection

Global telecom networks are founded on connectionless based communication, where packets are sent like letters – they have an end address, but no route is specified. The predominant connectionless scheme is the Internet Protocol (IP), used by the internet and by service providers’ own networks. But whilst telecom operators are upgrading to IP based networks, connection based schemes – where the network’s end points establish and terminate a link as needed – still have a role. Two new connection based schemes – Provider Backbone Technology (PBT) and Transport Multi Protocol Label Switching (T-MPLS) – are coming to the fore, driven by the rise of Ethernet. And Danish start up TPACK has developed integrated packet processing and traffic management technology that supports both protocols. The start up’s first reference designs supported protocol enhancements to Sonet/SDH optical transport, allowing transport of Ethernet and MPLS. Now, TPACK is providing PBT and T-MPLS reference boards and fpga designs to vendors keen to add carrier Ethernet to their networking platforms. Ethernet dominates local area networking (LAN) and some 95% of all traffic either starts or ends as Ethernet. But Ethernet is now becoming an important technology for carriers – as a service and for transport. Now, carriers are adopting Ethernet for cheap and efficient transport. BT, for example, is undertaking a £10billion network upgrade – the 21st Century Network, or 21CN. It is using Ethernet to connect its edge platforms – that deliver broadband services to homes and businesses – to metropolitan network nodes further within its network. In turn, Ethernet transport is connecting these metro nodes to equipment at the very core of 21CN. The issue, however, is that Ethernet was not designed to provide the scale and resiliency needed for carrier deployment.