Frost and Sullivan hands award to Exfo in recognition of its new portfolio of protocol test solutions for next-generation and traditional Sonet/SDH networks
Exfo Electro-Optical Engineering has been named recipient of the 2006 Product Differentiation Innovation Award by Frost and Sullivan.
This prestigious award is presented annually to the telecommunications test and measurement company which 'best demonstrates the ability to develop products with successful adoption of new or existing technologies that have become a part of its well-designed product family'.
Such innovation is expected to significantly contribute to the industry in terms of product performance and degree/rate of technical change.
Exfo received this award based on its new portfolio of protocol test solutions for next-generation and traditional Sonet/SDH networks.
The company successively launched the FTB-8120NG and FTB-8130NG Transport Blazer modules for its flagship FTB-400 universal test system (UTS).
Both modules - the former for 2.5Gb/s and the latter for 10Gb/s systems - support an extensive list of next-generation and legacy Sonet/SDH features, including generic framing procedure (GFP), high and low-order virtual concatenation (VCAT), link-capacity adjustment scheme (LCAS), direct mapping of ethernet frames for packet-over-Sonet (PoS), G.709 and SmartMode, to name a few.
Exfo also introduced the FTB-8120 and FTB-8130 Transport Blazer for the FTB-200 Compact Platform, a smaller two-slot portable unit that is ideal for super technicians in the field.
The FTB-8120 Transport Blazer supports test signals from 64Kb/s up to 2.5Gb/s for traditional Sonet/SDH networks with upgradeability to 10Gb/s.
The FTB-8130 Transport Blazer provides a full range of testing rates from 64Kb/s to 10Gb/s.
Both test modules support DSn, Sonet, PDH and SDH features, allowing users to perform a wide range of tests from simple bit-error rate (BER) analysis to more advanced network characterization and troubleshooting.
Finally, Exfo released the IQS-8120NG and IQS-8130NG Transport Blazer modules for the IQS-500 Intelligent Test System, which is designed for manufacturing floor and lab environments.
Similar to the next-gen Sonet/SDH test modules for the FTB-400 UTS, the IQS-8120NG and IQS-8130NG Transport Blazer modules boast an extensive list of features including GFP, high and low-order VCAT, LCAS, G.709, etc.
Each module contains an electrical 10/100/1000Mb/s ethernet and optical gigabit ethernet add/drop interface, used for inter-working with Exfo's IQS-8510 Packet Blazer ethernet module or other external ethernet devices.
All test modules come equipped with Exfo's exclusive SmartMode feature which provides automatic discovery of the Sonet/SDH mixed-mapping signal structure, including VCAT member identification.
"We made the strategic decision a few years ago to steer our protocol product development program towards test solutions for next-generation converged, IP-based networks," said Etienne Gagnon, Exfo's vice-president of optical and protocol product management.
"And it is now beginning to pay off based on our growing product leadership that is not only recognized by Frost and Sullivan but also by an increasing number of major customers.
"This award proves that the efforts we've deployed toward testing flexible, efficient and robust IP-based networks were right on target and we're confident that it will increasingly be reflected in our share of this fast-growing market."
