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MARCH 11, 2008 -- Optimum Communications Services Inc. (OCS; search for Optimum Communications Services) has been granted a patent for technology that enables real-time self-optimizing packet switching and transport networks. This patent on network traffic throughput maximization techniques that are used in OCS's Intelligent Transport Network (ITN) equipment can be found with its US Patent Number 7,333,511 via http://patft.uspto.gov/netahtml/PTO/srchnum.htm.
The patent is the second awarded OCS for technology related to its ITN line. The first covered a transparent, route-table-free packet forwarding mechanism.
The network optimization method automatically adjusts capacities of an "adaptive-mesh" of dynamic-bandwidth Layer 1 circuits based on real-time traffic load variations between network access points. As a result, ITN continuously maximizes the network customer traffic throughput while being packet-layer transparent and directly interoperable with common standard customer equipment, e.g., MPLS routers or Ethernet switches.
"OCS's latest patent represents an innovative, leading-edge methodology that in lab testing has demonstrated fiber-optic wavelength efficiency gains of up to 20X over traditional methods, while maintaining quality-of-service levels," according to Zeus Kerravala, Yankee Group's senior vice president of enterprise research. "Disruptive technology such as this being introduced by OCS significantly drives down the cost of bandwidth, helping to 'commoditize' Mbit/sec in the service delivery market similar to what has already occurred in the computer memory industry."
The adaptive-mesh architecture of ITN is designed to enable support of the theoretical maximum amount of non-oversubscribed access capacity over a given physical network capacity. For example, in the case of a 40-Gbit/sec fiber-optic wavelength ring and 10-Gbit/sec access rates, up to twenty 10-Gbit/sec access points per wavelength could be supported. By comparison, says the company, providing such service capacity with conventional technologies would require a pair of mutually protecting core packet switches or routers, plus a dedicated wavelength loop for each of the twenty 10-Gbit/sec (e.g., 10GbE) access points, i.e., 20 wavelengths in total.
Thus, OCS asserts that, compared to conventional implementations, ITN provides:
- 20:1 reduction in required wavelength capacity, and proportional reduction in optical equipment port capacity, representing 2000% architectural cost-efficiency gain
- Elimination of the core routers, saving 200 Gbits/sec of router capacity
- Packet-layer-transparent, customer-controllable packet-switched network connectivity.
"In addition to multiplying bandwidth efficiency by a factor of 20, ITN reduces the complexity, cost, and number of network elements and management systems required due to its real-time self-optimizing and self-configuring adaptive-mesh architecture", noted Richard Huffman, OCS's vice president of business development. "ITN therefore allows OCS to provide dedicated capacity-based, secure, and high-quality corporate WAN and service provider backbone network services at costs lower than even the conventional packet-layer-shared capacity based services."
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