RAD Exhibits Industry's First EFM Solution to Support EPL and EVPL Services

September 22, 2008: At the Carrier Ethernet World Congress 2008, RAD Data Communications is exhibiting its LA-210 Ethernet in the First Mile (EFM) DSL network termination unit, which extends the Ethernet service provider’s reach over DSL infrastructure, from the customer premises to the local DSLAM.

The unique LA-210 is the industry's first EFM solution to feature Carrier Ethernet attributes, including Ethernet Operations, Administration and Maintenance (OAM) for proactive Service Level Agreement (SLA) monitoring, Quality of Service (QoS) per Ethernet flow and advanced traffic management capabilities – all starting at the service hand-off point. The

LA-210, part of RAD's EtherAccess product suite, allows service providers to take advantage of local-loop unbundling (LLU) processes and widespread ATM and IP DSLAM deployment, using wholesale DSL services as the access technology for delivering mid-band Ethernet.

"The LA-210 uses SHDSL.bis technology to fill the bandwidth gap between SHDSL and high-speed fiber," notes Ami Barayev, Product Line Manager at RAD Data Communications. "It allows carriers and service providers to make high speed bandwidth available to reservoirs of customers currently unserved by fiber," he notes. "And it does all of this over Layer 2, which means that it’s much more scalable and easier to deploy than traditional Layer 3 solutions."

Certified by the Metro Ethernet Forum to deliver Ethernet Private Line (EPL) and Ethernet Virtual Private Line (EVPL) services per MEF-9 and MEF-14 specifications, the LA-210 offers Ethernet access rates of up to 22 Mbps over bonded SHDSL.bis copper lines to support both inter-office LAN connectivity and dedicated broadband access. In addition, it delivers Carrier Ethernet services, such as EPL, EVPL and Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) with multiple point-to-point Ethernet Virtual Connections (EVCs). The LA-210's smart Ethernet demarcation capabilities enable carrier-grade management of differentiated services and SLA performance guarantees with enhanced QoS and automated, proactive monitoring over the entire service path. Advanced monitoring and diagnostic tools reduce operating expenses (Opex). Offering maximum flexibility, it can operate as a VLAN-unaware bridge or in VLAN-aware mode with VLAN tagging and VLAN stacking (Q-in-Q) attributes.

The LA-210 is also hardware-ready to support pseudowire, which it will be able to do with a simple software upgrade. This will allow the LA-210 to extend E1/T1 over Ethernet as well.

RAD's EtherAccess product suite is designed to enable REAL (Reliable, Economical, Accountable and Limitless) carrier-grade Ethernet services. EtherAccess' unified approach enables seamless Ethernet access by providing same service attributes and user experience, so that Carrier Ethernet services can be ubiquitously extended to the subscriber premises, with bandwidth adjustments per customer requirements, regardless of the underlying access technology or the number of intermediate operator networks.