Ribbon revolutionizes optical transport network access economics

Westford, MA – Ribbon Communications Inc. (Nasdaq: RBBN), a global provider of real time communications software and network solutions to service providers, enterprises, and critical infrastructure sectors, today announced two transformative additions to its Apollo 9900 Optical Transport Network (OTN) Switching portfolio, the Apollo 9901X platform and the MIO700 blade. The new solutions extend OTN switching from core to metro networks cost-efficiently, a difficult requirement to fulfill until today.

Ribbon’s 9901X access OTN switch provides the benefits of a software-configurable solution including faster provisioning, wavelength grooming and automated restoration throughout the network to the edge with the cost efficiencies previously found only in manual options. While traditional solutions map multiple 10G colored interfaces onto a WDM network using transponders or muxponders via fixed filters, which requires engineering, the Apollo 9901X maps services under software control onto one or two 100G wavelength uplinks, which can be configured in an access ring.

The 9901X can carry up to twenty business services including any combination of Gigabit Ethernet, Fibre Channel and SONET/SDH. Optical encryption provides additional security for sensitive applications. The Apollo 9901X is delivered in an industry-first ultra-compact 1RU platform and interworks seamlessly with Apollo metro and core OTN switches under a common management interface.

Service providers constantly searching for new ways to deliver metro aggregation at the lowest cost per bit already leverage Ribbon’s innovative 9904X metro OTN switch with its “fabric-less” design. The MIO700 blade provides an additional range of benefits, including an ultra-economical 400G DCO (Digital Coherent Optics) uplink and a 700G fabric. Up to four MIO700 blades can interconnect on the 9904X backplane, providing pay as you grow scalability up to 2.8T capacity.

“Our Apollo suite of products is designed to help service providers deploy programmable and open optical networks cost-effectively and these two new additions are furthering that mission,” said Sam Bucci, EVP & General Manager, Packet Optical Networks, Ribbon. “While the economics of OTN switching have always been prohibitive in the metro and access components of the network, the Apollo 9901X and MIO700 blade change the equation for providers everywhere.”