What's needed to open the first mile of the optical network to new services is an optical service edge solution that offers a migration from legacy voice and data services to next-generation Ethernet services over today's network infrastructure. Such platforms allow providers to replace their previously rigid, circuit-optimized first mile with a service intelligent solution that simplifies the delivery of new packet services through a simple Ethernet "plug in the wall." Time-to-market is assured with the ability to deploy these services across today's widely deployed SONET/SDH and DWDM infrastructures.

With new service-aware optical edge platforms, a customer's Ethernet service interface becomes a soft-tunable entry point to multiple network-layer services, where each service has a distinct service-level profile. For example, customer traffic could be destined for an Internet VPN, a frame relay–based corporate intranet site, and possibly a native Ethernet metro-area site. Service options can be significantly improved beyond the rigid structure of today's SONET/SDH hierarchy with the ability to set a guaranteed bit rate (GBR) and maximum burst rate (MBR) that scales from 64 kbps to full-rate 1 Gbps in granular 64 kbps increments for each and every service.

Multi-service access is enabled with protocol mediation capabilities, which allow the optical service edge platform to step beyond "any single service, any port" to enable "all services, any port." Traffic is mediated using standard interworking protocols and then groomed to high-speed SONET/SDH paths, or trunks, which ultimately terminate at the required Internet, frame relay, native Ethernet, and/or ATM–based service destination. Efficiency is assured with advanced bandwidth management capabilities plus the ability to share "trunks" among multiple customers and across multiple platforms. Figure 2 shows an intelligent optical edge platform that allows the dynamic creation of scalable, soft-tunable Ethernet services, simplifying and accelerating the delivery of multiple network services over today's network infrastructure.

Figure 2. Intelligent Optical Access Platform

Capital equipment and back office systems investments are reduced with the ability to integrate into an existing SONET/SDH infrastructure. Five-nines service availability is protected with support for the protection mechanisms and diverse topologies that are associated with SONET/SDH architectures. Another benefit of a fully standards-based solution is the ability to plug into an existing SONET/SDH infrastructure as a single-ended solution. With this capability, providers are not required to deploy optical edge equipment on both ends of a service connection, which simplifies service delivery, reduces cost, and also reduces the co-location space required to deploy a service.

It is also mandatory to carry forward high-revenue TDM services, with the optimal solution coming from platforms that offer a completely separate TDM backbone to assure service-level guarantees are met.

Dynamic service activation is enabled with the support of an advanced service and element manager that replaces box-by-box configuration tools with a simple, centralized graphical user interface (GUI) for adding and expanding services across the network. A fully integrated SQL database would add network-wide service views with full visibility into network assets and resources used, eliminating the complexity associated with operators tracking changes to determine the impact each time a new circuit or service is provisioned.

Full flow-though provisioning, end-to-end billing, and service-level management would be enabled by integrating these advanced service and element management systems into existing OSS/NMS environments through north bound CORBA, XML, HTML, and LDAP interfaces. In addition, having a partitioned management capability allows providers to establish new service options and new business partnerships where wholesalers, retailers, and subscribers can each have privileged access to their own service management and monitoring information.