RAD’s ETX-204A best-of-breed Carrier Ethernet demarcation device provides advanced service delivery and SLA assurance with carrier-grade reliability. Converging voice and data services over a unified Ethernet, IP or MPLS network, a single ETX-204A device delivers IP VPN, VoIP and dedicated Internet access over the same physical link as a Layer 2 LAN-to-LAN service, all with differentiated quality of service and end-to-end monitoring.
Synchronization in cellular networks is critical to ensure proper quality for mobile services. As radio access networks (RANs) are rapidly transitioning to asynchronous packet switched technologies, which introduce packet delay variation and packet loss, timing distribution and recovery have become a major challenge in the migration to IP backhaul.
With powerful synchronization capabilities, the ETX-204A ensures highly accurate, seamless delivery of 3G and 4G traffic over packet backhaul. It enables mobile operators and transport providers to eliminate the risk of service disruptions, impaired cell hand-offs and excessive dropped calls, thereby supporting reliable transmission of real-time traffic over PSNs. It also ensures QoS priorities for clock traffic and supports “SDH/SONET or better” performance requirements for voice and video traffic, such as up to 16 ppb (parts per billion) frequency accuracy.
The ETX-204A’s SyncToP suite includes clock recovery and distribution using Synchronous Ethernet (Sync-E), 1588v2 and a built-in input/output clock interface. In addition, the ETX-A devices deliver managed quality of service in next generation radio access networks (RANs), allowing mobile operators to enhance their 3.5G/4G service performance by combining Ethernet aggregation with OAM and SLA enforcement capabilities – starting at the LTE eNodeB, HSDPA base station or WiMAX cell site.
The ETX-204A features enhanced Ethernet OAM capabilities to enable remote and automatic fault localization without service interruptions or costly on-site inspections. The device’s comprehensive Ethernet OAM suite includes Ethernet Link OAM (IEEE standard 802.3-2005, formerly 802.3ah), Ethernet Service OAM (IEEE 802.1ag) and Performance Measurement (ITU-T Y.1731).
In addition to the non-intrusive OAM-based loopback testing, the ETX-204A demarcation device supports Layer 1, Layer 2 and Layer 3 loopbacks for link integrity diagnostics, performed per VLAN, per EVC or per EVC.CoS, whereby the source and destination MAC and IP addresses are swapped without disrupting the traffic flows that are not being tested.
The ETX-204A is equipped with advanced, software-based capabilities for handling multi-priority traffic, ensuring latency, jitter and packet delivery performance on a per-flow basis. The device supports traffic classification according to any user-defined criteria, including VLAN ID, VLAN priority (Pbit), DSCP/ ToS, subscriber port, and others, as well as their combinations. In addition, metering, policing and shaping functionalities help carriers rate-limit user traffic according to pre-defined CIR (committed information rate) and EIR (excess information rate) profiles, thereby supporting customized service packages and enabling carriers to introduce new revenue generators.
Enhanced quality of service is further supported by a hierarchical scheduling mechanism that combines strict priority (SP) and weighted fair queue (WFQ) scheduling, to efficiently handle real-time, premium and best-effort traffic. The ETX-204A also uses weighted random early detection (WRED) policy for intelligent queue management and congestion avoidance.
By supporting VLAN stacking (“Q-in-Q”), the ETX-204A enables service providers to ensure transparent delivery of user traffic, while minimizing the number of required VLAN IDs in the network. In addition, the ETX-204A features unique P-bit re-marking capabilities, which assign color-specific P-bit values to Ethernet frames at the network ingress to ensure metering continuity across the Metro Ethernet network. User traffic that was marked “Yellow” according to the CIR/EIR parameters by the device’s QoS engine is assigned a new P-bit value to signal its status and priority, so that it is dropped first by 802.1Q and 802.1ad network elements in the event of congestion. This is especially useful in color-blind as well as in color-aware networks with no “discard eligible” (“yellow”) marking.
The ETX-204A features flexible management capabilities, including local management via an ASCII terminal (RS-232). In addition, remote management can be performed either inband, using the network or user ports, or out-of-band using a dedicated management port, while maintaining separation between management and user traffic via the use of VLANs. Advanced FCAPS (Fault, Configuration, Administration, Performance, Security) and diagnostic tools are provided by RADview-EMS, RAD’s carrier-class element management system, via an SNMP-based GUI.
The ETX-204A also supports a variety of configuration access channels, including CLI over Telnet, SNMP, Web server, and TFTP. Incorporated security features include Secure Shell (SSH), Web-based Secure Socket Layer (SSL), SNMPv3, and RADIUS, as well as management access control list (ACL).
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