End Of Life for Alcatel / Newbridge 7270 MSC

End Of Life for Alcatel / Newbridge 7270 MSC

The Alcatel 7270 Multiservice Concentrator (MSC) is a carrier class edge services switch that adapts, aggregates and implements services for ATM/IP/MPLS converged networks. Providing advanced traffic management on a standards-based platform, it enables the profitable delivery of differentiated services for managed IP/MPLS, video, ATM, frame relay and private line applications.

In addition to its service delivery role, the fully managed Alcatel 7270 MSC allows carriers to optimise their network infrastructure by providing broadband aggregation for 2G/2.5G/3G mobile, fixed wireless and DSL traffic.

There are two variants of the Alcatel 7270 MSC, a 6-slot version suited for customer located applications, and an 8-slot variant suited for carrier infrastructure applications. All control, switching hub and interface cards are common to both the 6-slot and 8-slot Alcatel 7270 MSC.

Many people may or may not be aware that Newbridge 7270 has manufacture discontinued. It is becoming increasingly difficult to source certain items on the refurbished market.
Xbridge Services holds surplus stock of many items providing extensive discounts, please see below specials that we have on offer, please note that due to high demand that the products are being offered on a first come first serve basis.

90-4925-01 2801 DTU Repair Service

Newbridge 2801 DTU Repair Service

Following many request from customers to source these modems we have since invested in a new a test and repair lab to take in faulty units and offer a free diagnose service. Although a few of the on-board IC's are priority to Newbridge and can no longer be sourced we have however secured suppliers for most of the on-board components.
After an initial up skill period we are currently achieving a success rate in the region of 80%. So what does this cost the end user.

We offer a fix charge of $450 for each fixed DTU, irrespective of which on-board components have been replaced. For Modems which are un-repairable then we would dispose of the modems in accordance to WEEE regulations.

If you have faulty 2801 DTU modems and wish for us to repair them then please contact us support@xbridge.uk.net

Alcatel Newbridge 7470 MSP Platform Quad STM1 90-8687-25

Alcatel Newbridge 7470 MSP Platform Quad STM1 90-8687-??

“ Making Sense of the Alcatel Part Numbering Scheme”

We have recently supplied several Quad STM1 cards 90-8687-?? to three different clients and have unravelled much confusion over the varying part numbers based on the different variants and options for this card.

So in true ‘Blog fashion’ I will try to simplify the confusion on what the various option are and what part numbers are in general availability and what is manufactured discontinued.
Hopefully this will aid customers with further purchases of this card.

Introduction to the card
The Quad OC3/STM1 Card is a Quad ATM interface card for the Alcatel MSP 7470 / 7670 Platform. The card operates at the SONET OC3 rate of 155 Mbps per port. The ATM card was originally launched in release 5 with four different orderable part numbers, varying on the mode of operation.

90-8687-01 Rel. 5.0 Intermediate Reach (IR) single mode fiber optical interface
90-8687-02 Rel 5.0 Long Reach (LR) single mode fiber optical interface
90-8687-03 Rel 5.0 Multi-mode fiber (MMF) optical interface
90-8687-04 Rel 5.0 Electrical ,BNC Interface

All these cards were eventually manufactured discontinued and superseded with release 6 compliant versions

90-8687-11 Rel. 6.0 Intermediate Reach (IR) single mode fiber optical interface
90-8687-12 Rel 6.0 Long Reach (LR) single mode fiber optical interface
90-8687-13 Rel 6.0 Multi-mode fiber (MMF) optical interface
90-8687-14 Rel 6.0 Electrical ,BNC Interface

It should be noted that currently only the 90-8687-11 is still on General availability with Alcatel and that the other three variants are now marked as for future manufacture discontinued (although current it can be ordered).


“ So what’s next after the these other variants are discontinued? "

Well Alcatel now have available the 90-8687-25 STM1 Quad Universal SFP card.

90-8687-25 Card - QUAD OC3/STM1 SFP UNI/NNI CLEI –
This card may be used in 7470 MSP R6.0 - R9.1 or 7670 ESE R2.2 - R5.X systems. The quad OC3/STM1 UNI/NNI Card is a ATM interface card operating at the SONET/SDH OC3/STM1 rate of 155 Mbps per port.
The card is shipped without the optical or electrical physical interface and requires one or more of the Alcatel associated SFP adaptors.
The advantage of this card is that you can mix and match each of the four interface ports to the type of interface you require.

“So what SFP Interfaces are available? “

90-9764-01 OC3/STM1 MMF SFP clei - 1-port OC-3/STM-1 SONET/SDH Optics Module, MM, 1310 nm, LC Connector.

90-7964-02 OC3/STM1 IR SFP clei - 1-port OC-3/STM-1 SONET/SDH Optics Module, IR-1 / I-1, 1310 nm, LC Connector.

90-9764-03 OC3/STM1 LR SFP cle - 1-port OC-3/STM-1 SONET/SDH Optics Module, LR-1 / L-1.1, 1310 nm, LC Connector.

90-9764-04 STM1 ELEC SFP - 1-port STM-1 SDH Electrical Module, 1.0/2.3 Coaxial Connector (Type A Coupling).


“And Finally if you need conversion cables then..”

90-9771-01 SINGLE MODE LC TO SC CONVERSION CABLE - A 1 meter duplex single mode LC to SC conversion cable. Used with the Quad OC3/STM1 SFP Cell Relay card or the OC3/STM1 Working I/O (90-9785-02) to adapt the SFP connector to existing cable connectors.

90-9771-02 SINGLE MODE LC TO FC CONVERSION CABLE - A 1 meter duplex single mode LC to FC conversion cable. . Used with the Quad OC3/STM1 SFP Cell Relay card or the OC3/STM1 Working I/O (90-9785-02) to adapt the SFP connector to existing cable connectors

90-9771-03 MULTIMODE LC TO SC CONVERSION CABLE - A 1 meter duplex multimode LC to SC conversion cable. . Used with the Quad OC3/STM1 SFP Cell Relay card or the OC3/STM1 Working I/O (90-9785-02) to adapt the SFP connector to existing cable connectors.

90-9772-01 BNC CONVERSION CABLE FOR ELEC SFP -A pair of 1 meter 1.0/2.3 Coaxial Connector (Type A Coupling) to BNC conversion cable. One can be used for Tx and the other for Rx. . Used with the Quad OC3/STM1 SFP Cell Relay card or the OC3/STM1 Working I/O (90-9785-02) to adapt the SFP connector to existing cable connectors

90-9772-02 SMZ CONVERSION CABLE FOR ELEC SFP - A pair of 1 meter 1.0/2.3 Coaxial Connector (Type A Coupling) to SMZ conversion cables. One can be used for Tx and the other for Rx. . Used with the Quad OC3/STM1 SFP Cell Relay card or the OC3/STM1 Working I/O (90-9785-02) to adapt the SFP connector to existing cable connectors.



Some additional information
I have yet to test the new Quad STM1 card with 3rd party SFP’s, Alcatel state that only there approved SFPs will function in the cards but I welcome any comments if you have successfully implemented and used 3rd party SFP’s?

Launch of the new Xbridge Services website

Time for a make over

We are all aware of the benefit of a business website in today’s competitive market place; with the internet becoming one of the foremost tools used to search for suppliers, customers and information. So the need to keep our own website fresh and relevant is of paramount concern. With this in mind, and following some frank and open discussions with our customers and business supporters we have embarked on an extensive redesign of our Xbridge Services website, which to be honest is overdue.

There are many web designers and developers advertising, so the first issue is who to choose. As the proposed site would include our product database and a quotation system operating in the background, we decided a web developer would have a better understanding of our needs and goals, and this was quickly borne out after a couple of telephone calls. We started the selection process with a list of criteria, a draft site map and style sheets; and then circulated these out to a number of web development companies to respond to, nothing really too difficult there you would think. This resulted in some surprising responses, from daily questions and long in depth telephone calls, to, at the other end of the scale complete silence.

And this was again reflected in the range of quotations returned. The range of pricing we received was interesting at the least. Submissions ranged from the dirt cheap, to “how much!!” and the conclusion we could draw from this was that some of the developers were just not listening to us, or taking time understanding our business or requirements. So finally, we short listed the responses down to three companies for further discussions and finally settled on one. Our selection process took us six weeks overall.

We needed to be able to talk face to face and review the development on a regular basis for our piece of mind and to keep overall control of the project. Starting with a kick off meeting the development progressed as we expected, throwing us questions we did not think of initially and sometimes not understanding, but with the help and patience of our developer we moved the project forward. Our database grew and stretched us a little but the problems with this were eventually resolved. The style grew from the initial look and feel and grew into one we could migrate to a new corporate image and develop a new style for branding and documentation.

As our product database was to be included as the reference detail behind the quote builder this grew substantially since the initial export from our Stock Control System into its current form. We needed to include additional detail once we understood the power behind the new website. This included additional fields for downloadable documents, related images, and a number of additional fields to provide and easy to use search for visitors to the website. So an initially simple task resulted in a huge rework of the information to product a usable and informative results page. This database currently holds over 60,000 products and supporting services.

One crucial part of the development for us was the metrics and statistical reporting on the website traffic. It is no good having a fantastic site if nobody can find it, or visits or we do not see any resultant business. So we looked at what Google analytics offered for this and our developer included an additional stats package. We believe we now have a comprehensive view of who looks at our site and how they found us. We integrated a live chat option to the site which gives visitors who may have questions or issues navigating around the site the option of chatting with our Sales advisors or Engineering team. Importantly this would give us a record of each page the visitor opens; so again we can start mapping trends and look to keep the site customer focused.

The final development has taken longer than expected but part of that was our issue, changing and adding to the requirements as we went along. Are we happy with the results? Well yes, our site has the expected look and feel, meets the criteria laid down at the very beginning, and also has exposed us to new visitors and customers from all around the world who would not have found us using the previous website.

It has not been easy, we needed to provide a lot more detail than initially expected and were required to put in a substantial amount of additional resources’ but we believe we now have a site which is relevant to our customers, together with a site we can manage, review and update quickly and easily.

Take a look for yourself at www.xbridgeservices.com

and we welcome your comments.

Testing Of the Digitel /4W G.SHDSL.bis Access CPE

A couple of weeks back I wrote a short “blog” about the end of life for Alcatel 2801 DTU and a migration path for this type of deployment.
This new migration path comes with a replacement card for the 28LC card; the new Alcatel GSLC line card. In summary this card works in two modes.

1. Again with a proprietary NTU ( Symmetricom Go-Wide2.3). This unfortunately is no longer in production and hard to source.
2. A 3rd party G.991.2 compliant NTU.

The second part is where the problem lies as many so-called compliant units wouldn’t work with the Alcatel GSLC card.

We at Xbridge have tested a few G.991.2 SHDSL modems, and so far only one modem has successfully passed all lab tests. This is the

Digitel 2/4W G.SHDSL.bis Access CPE.

The Digitel Modem comes in 2 flavors, 2 and 4 wire mode of operation and they can both work in stand alone mode (master-slave).
The choice of modem is the 2 wire since the GSLC line card only works in a 2-wire mode. One may deploy the 4-wire NTU, but would have to be configured to 2-wire operation.

From our initial set-up tests we found that unless the correct S/W code is preloaded on the Newbridge GSLC card as well as the modem’s firmware being of the correct release then the unit would not synchronize with the GSLC line card.

The Digitel modem has 2 data ports; V.35 and an E1 G.703. If the modem was used back to back i.e. one as a Master and one as a Slave then both ports could be used simultaneously, however when connecting just one modem directly to the Newbridge GSLC card then only one port could be used at any one time. The V.35 is more of interest because that compares to the data port of the 2801 DTU.

Whilst the E1 port could be used to replace the HDSL Lim (90-2380-01) when connecting Newbridge 2902 Mux (90-2904-01) via copper back to the central site, or for simply offering Full or fractional E1 services to the client.

"It is worth noting that this modem is backward compatible with the
older Newbridge DTUs namely the 2752s, 2753s etc, offering further flexibility "

Here are the test scenarios;
1. A TTC Bert Tester connected to the Digitel Modem and a loopback set within the Newbridge.
2. A TTC Bert Tester connected to an E1 card in the Newbridge and a loopback (both soft and hard) set on the G.SHDSL Modem.
3. A TTC Bert Tester connected to one Digitel Modem and a loopback set on another Digitel Modem/Newbridge 270x/ Newbridge 275x connected to the same line card. (normal deployment)
4. A TTC Bert Tester connected to one Digitel Modem and a loopback set on another Digitel Modem/ Newbridge 270x/ Newbridge 275x connected to a different line card in another Newbridge Mux.(normal deployment)

In summary here are the Pro & Cons of using this CPE.

Pro’s
Flexibility of using either V.35 or E1 Ports (75 Ohm / 120Ohm)
Front Panel buttons for providing local loop’s & remote loops for diagnostics
Far superior line/distance performances in comparison to the Newbridge HDSL line coding.

Con’s
No remote management of the modem as Newbridge uses propriety CPSS management protocol.
Unable to change signaling control leads and parameters remotely from the Newbridge 56020 network management platform. Unable to remotely downgrade or upgrade the circuit speed. This task would have the be done locally on the modem via the VT100 terminal interface.

Conclusion
The two main advantages are lower NTU cost and availability, whilst offering a migration path for customers struggling to source 2801 modems. The Digitel CPE is a carrier class modem and has a wide installed base amongst many PTT’s and carriers.

The main and only disadvantage is remote management. Since it’s not proprietary and doesn’t use CPSS (Alcatel Management Protocol), one has to locally configure the Modem (usually the data interface speed via the serial port before deployment).

Since this report we have now conducted trials in West Africa with a major PTT and have successfully demonstrated this modem in the field.

Xbridge Services will now seek distributorship from Digitel for further supply of this modem.

The datasheet for this modem can be found at

http://www.xbridgeservices.com/department/download_centre/

For pricing please contact us
http://www.xbridgeservices.com/action/contactus/

End of life for the Newbridge 2801 DTU

90-4925-01 Alcatel 2801 MainStreet DTU HDSL Data Termination Unit

For those not in the know the 2801 DTU manufactured by Alcatel / Newbridge is now end of life and becoming increasingly hard to source on the refurbished market.
The 2801 DTU is a client side desk top modem which comes with one universal serial Data port (V.35, V.36, TIA/EIA-449 (RS-449) or X.21) running speeds up to 1 Mb (2w Model 90-4925-01) or 2Mb (2W/4W Model 90-4926-01)

It seems that more and more Telecom manufacturers Alcatel, Siemens & Keymile to name a few are now removing desktop modems from their product portfolios leaving the consumer to resort to 3rd party alternatives. On this note if you have encountered similar issues with other Manufacturers I would like to hear your comments and how to ‘work around’ a solution.

However with the 2801 DTU, Newbridge deployed propriety coding from the line card ( 90-6396-01 - 27LC3-12 LINE CARD) to the 2801 Modem thus no 3rd party DTU’s are available.

At Xbridge we have looked at several migration options for customers including replacing the 27LC3-12 Line Card with the Alcatel GSLC Line Card 90-9553-01.

Over the next couple of postings I will run through the operability testing we have done with several desktop modem manufacturers and list the gains and pitfalls of running with a 3rd party solution.

On the next posting I will detail the testing carried out with the

Digitel 2/4W G.SHDSL Bis Acess CPE

If you want us to test operability with your CPE modem then please let us know.

One giant leap.... and a new beginning

Welcome to our new Xbridge blog ' Telecoms talk ', a blog that will offer technical advice, telecom debates and general industry news.
I usually have a lot to say, but when it comes to putting it down on paper its a much harder task to do.
So why create a blog and who will read it?
Well firstly let me introduce myself, My name is Phil Chappelle and I am the Managing Director of Xbridge Services Ltd. I have worked in a telecoms environment for the past 15 years so its fair to say that I have seen a lot of transitions over that period such as analogue voice to Voip and Telemetry data services to IP MPLS networks. I have worked with many PTT's, Carriers, Teleco, ISP's, WISP's and Satellite service providers through the UK, Europe Middle East and Africa.
My main technology focus has been predominantly with Newbridge Networks in voice and data WAN infrastructures but since starting my own business 9 years ago I have crossed the barrier into last mile copper and wireless access, IP convergence and other emerging technologies.
So why start a blog? Well quite simply I get asked a lot of questions and advice and I would like to share my responses to a wider audience. Similarly I would like to engage in other topics with new readers.
So who will read it, well who knows!! but I would imagine their are other like minded people out there like myself.