ECI Telecom details its cell-site gateway for 5G

ECI Telecom has unveiled its cell-site router for 5G that also supports existing 3G and 4G wireless standards. 

“You need to support the existing one or two generations of cellular networks,” says Jimmy Mizrahi, ECI’s executive vice president and head of global portfolio.

Jimmy MizrahiThe platform, the NPT 1022 cell-site router, is the first of several platforms that ECI will launch for 5G as it upgrades and expands its Neptune product line.

“The 1022 is part of a new line of products covering all layers of the network, starting at the cell site and going to aggregation and the metro core,” says Ezra Yehezkel, product line manager, packet transport solutions at ECI.

The Neptune portfolio will include a high-capacity packet-processing platform that can scale to 16 terabits. 

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Is ADVA Optical Networking looking to buy ECI Telecom?

Is ADVA Optical Networking preparing a bid for private company ECI Telecom? The latest consolidation rumour involving the two mid-tier metro players comes after Infinera’s announcement that it is acquiring Coriant, a deal that is expected to close this quarter. 

According to a source in the financial sector, ADVA wanted to acquire Coriant but failed to raise the required funds. Infinera’s successful bid for Coriant has led ADVA to consider alternatives as it looks to secure its future in a consolidating marketplace, with ECI Telecom being viewed as an attractive target. 

ECI Telecom is reportedly considering an initial public offering (IPO) on the London Stock Exchange to raise $170 million. A source close to ADVA confirmed that ‘ECI is looking for a home’ but declined to comment on whether ADVA is involved. Another source close to ADVA suggested that there may be some truth in such a bid.

ADVA declined to comment. 

An ECI spokesperson said the company has issued no statement regarding an IPO and expressed surprise when asked if ECI was looking to merge. The spokesperson declined to comment when asked about ADVA acquiring ECI. 

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OFDM promises compact Terabit transceivers

Source ECI Telecom

A one Terabit super-channel, crafted using orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM), has been transmitted over a live network in Germany. The OFDM demonstration is the outcome of a three-year project conducted by the Tera Santa Consortium comprising Israeli companies and universities.

Current 100 Gig coherent networks use a single carrier for the optical transmission whereas OFDM imprints the transmitted data across multiple sub-carriers. OFDM is already used as a radio access technology, the Long Term Evolution (LTE) cellular standard being one example.

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ECI Telecom demos 100 Gigabit over 4,600km

• 4,600km optical transmission over submarine cable
• The Tera Santa Consortium, chaired by ECI, will show a 400 Gigabit/ 1 Terabit transceiver prototype in the summer
• 100 Gigabit direct-detection module on hold as the company eyes new technology developments

"When we started the project it was not clear whether the market would go for 400 Gig or 1 Terabit. Now it seems that the market will start with 400 Gig."

Jimmy Mizrahi, ECI Telecom

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ECI Telecom’s next-generation metro packet transport family

• The Native Packet Transport (NPT) family targets the cost-conscious metro network
• Supports Ethernet, MPLS-TP and TDM
• ECI claims a 65% lower total cost of ownership using MPLS-TP and native TDM

 NPT's positioning as part of the overall network. Source: ECI Telecom

ECI Telecom has announced a product line for packet transport in the metro. The Native Packet Transport (NPT) family aims to reduce the cost of operating packet networks while supporting traditional time division multiplexing (TDM) traffic.

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100 Gigabit direct detection gains wider backing

More vendors are coming to market with 100 Gigabit direct detection products for metro and private networks. 

The emergence of a second de-facto 100 Gigabit standard, a complement to 100 Gigabit coherent, gained credence with 4x28 Gigabit-per-second (Gbps) direct detect announcements from Finisar and Oclaro and likely backing from system vendor, ECI Telecom.

 

"We believe that in some cases operators will prefer to go with this technology instead of coherent"

Shai Stein, CTO, ECI Telecom 

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ECI Telecom's Apollo mission

The privately-owned system vendor has launched Apollo, a family of what it calls optimised multi-layer transport platforms. 

Event

ECI Telecom has launched a family of platforms that combines optical transmission, Ethernet and optical transport network (OTN) switching and IP routing.

The 9600 series platforms, dubbed Apollo, combines the functionality of what until now has required a packet-optical transport system (P-OTS) and a carrier Ethernet switch router (CESR).

The Apollo 9600 series architecture. Source: ECI Telecom

ECI refers to the capabilities of such a combined platform as optimised multi-layer transport (OMLT). Analysts view the platform as a natural evolution of P-OTS rather than a new category of system.  

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