Fast Ethernet over E1 or T1 NTUs

RAD’s RICi-E1 and RICi-T1 Fast Ethernet over E1 or T1 network termination units (NTUs) are Ethernet demarcation devices connecting Fast Ethernet LANs over E1 or T1 circuits.

 

Part of RAD’s EtherAccess® suite of Ethernet access solutions, they are deployed in point-to-point or hub-and-spoke topologies, working opposite RAD’s Egate-20 Ethernet over TDM gateway and Egate-100 Ethernet over TDM gateway. This enables carriers and service providers to extend their customer reach and utilize legacy PDH infrastructure in delivering new Ethernet services. Typical applications for RICi-E1 and RICi-T1 Fast Ethernet NTUs include Carrier Ethernet access, backhauling network management traffic and connecting inter-office or enterprise LAN segments.

• Promote fast and easy deployment of Ethernet services over PDH networks

• Reduce operating expenditures (OpEx) by optimizing use of TDM circuit bandwidth

• Enable service differentiation and QoS per application

• Support interoperability with standards-based, third party devices

• Allow service resiliency through network diagnostics and fault propagation

The RICi-E1 and RICi-T1 are network termination units (NTUs) delivering Fast Ethernet over full or fractional E1 or T1 circuits. Part of RAD’s EtherAccess® suite of Ethernet access solutions, they provide a clear demarcation point between subscribers and providers networks, converting Ethernet to TDM media and extending carriers’ reach to deliver new Ethernet services over legacy PDH infrastructure. The RICi-E1 and RICi-T1 support a single unframed/framed E1 or T1 circuit and feature a 10/100BaseT user port.

 

Typical applications include:

• Ethernet private line/LAN services

• Backhauling of network management traffic

• Connecting inter-office or enterprise LAN segments

 

Supporting Ethernet traffic delivery with standard generic framing procedure (GFP) as well as HDLC framing, the RICi-E1 and RICi-T1 allow easy, standard-based multi-vendor interoperability. Additionally, they enable user-defined service differentiation and per-application prioritization, with strict quality of service (QoS) mechanism according to VLAN priority bits (802.1p) and IP Precedence.

The VLAN tagging, stacking and stripping options enable transparent user traffic delivery, keeping all user VLAN settings intact. In addition, management traffic may be discretely tagged to fully separate it from user traffic.

 

The devices can operate in VLAN-unaware or VLAN-aware modes, while their internal Fast Ethernet bridge can be configured to either filter local traffic or transparently forward all received packets

The RICi-E1 and RICi-T1 support remote loopbacks on the TDM physical layer, and ping and trace-route diagnostics for the IP layer, thus allowing fast isolation of network problems to ensure network performance is unaffected and to avoid costly technician truck rolls. A bi-directional fault propagation mechanism notifies the local and remote equipment about faulty conditions and enables routers and switches on both ends of the link to divert traffic when errors are detected.

The RICi-E1 and RICi-T1 are managed in-band from the Fast Ethernet user port or remotely through the TDM port.

 

RADview-Lite -- RAD’s new RADview service package -- provides SNMP fault management, including SNMP traps, status polling and TFTP-based software and configuration download. Remote element management is available either through the ConfiguRAD Web-based application or Telnet. Local out-of-band management is provided via an ASCII terminal.