News and Product Updates

Gig-E Multi-Service Access Platform Touts Advantages over SONET/SDH

TC Communications Inc., the leader in industrial fiber optic network connectivity technology, today announced the commercial availability of its new flagship Gigabit Ethernet Multi-Service Platform (MSAP), the JumboSwitch ­ product Family.

Based on the most advanced Ethernet/IP, VoIP and TDM over IP/Ethernet technologies, the Jumboswitch MSAP family offers an efficient, low cost alternative to SONET/SDH network solutions for many applications, and promises straight-forward and simple scalability for any network topologies and sizes.

Compared to the complicated hierarchies of SONET or SDH based systems, the JumboSwitch drastically reduces operational expenses since it totally eliminates unnecessary hardware layers, troubleshooting.

In the past, SONET and SDJ communication systems were the only choices when it came to building mission critical automation and control systems. But, progress in the control, computing and communication technologies has made these TDM based communication systems basically obsolete. This obsolescence is especially apparent during the planning and implementation of Smart Grid backbone networks. The trend is moving quickly towards Ethernet/IP based communications.

The Jumboswitch makes communication network design extremely easy and straight forward. Legacy equipment, e.g. T1/E1, T3/E3, RS-232/RS-485, can co-exist harmoniously on the same platform with more advanced technologies including Ethernet, GigE fiber ports, Turbo Serial for protective relay communication, and LANex, a virtual VoIP PBX without the need of additional Call Managers or SIP Servers.

The center piece of the JumboSwitch family is a fully-managed and easily scalable gigabit Ethernet switch that integrates up to seven hot-swappable Ethernet, Voice & Data interface cards onto a gigabit backbone Ethernet fiber optic network.

Management, networking and security features are extensive and include STP, RSTP, SNMP (v2 & v2) VLAND IGMP Snooping, Port Rate control, QoS, etc. The JumboSwitch supports all popular topologies including redundant ring, bus , string, star and add/drop multiplexing. It is available in 2U and 4U (rack) versions. With TC’s proprietary self healing technology, the recovery time for JumboSwitch fiber rings is less than 40ms for any number of nodes.

Configurations are flexible and easily determined by network engineers. For example, it could be configured as a 10/100/1000MBps Ethernet 42-port redundant ring switch with any combination of fiber or copper ports. Or, it could be configured with 12 channels of Ethernet, 8 channels of T1/E1, 8 channels of phone and 4 channels of Rs-232.

All Jumboswitch family interface cards with and optional Industrial Hardened version (-40°C to 80°C) for extreme environments that meet or exceed all pertinent industrial specifications.

The V.P. of Sales & Marketing, noted that the JumboSwitch offers users outstanding price-performance ratios for their communications networks and extreme ease to design, build and maintain.

“JumboSwitch substantially reduces capital expenditures by maximizing bandwidth usage and eliminating unnecessary hardware hierarchies,” he said. “And, compared to SONET/SDH solutions, users will be pleasantly surprised by how much it reduces operation expenditures.

The V.P. also emphasized the importance of bridging TDM and IP with Gig#, T1/E1, RS-232/485 and VoIP.

“JumboSwitch is the ideal product for many system and network engineers, that gives them the best of both worlds, TDM and Ethernet/IP, without having to compromise the project requirements.”