11/22/2004 -- One day after Cisco Systems Inc. announced major improvements to its optical networking line, Nortel Networks touted an optical renaissance of its own.

Last Tuesday, Nortel announced the Optical Multiservice Edge (OME) 6110, the first of several planned offerings in a line of compact, multi-service access products. Nortel says the new OME 6110 is part of a product line that’s designed to extend the value of service convergence from the network core to the customer premise.

In this regard, Nortel describes the OME 6110 as an on-premise solution that enables service providers to offer packet and optical-based services to enterprise customers. The OME 6110 supports SONET, SDH and J-SDH and is based on a fixed configuration that’s augmented by an optional expansion slot. Nortel says this helps reduce acquisition cost while also giving customers some room to grow. Out of the box, the OME 6110 supports 16 DS1s/E1s, but the optional expansion slot can support a range of other options—including Client Interface Modules, such as 28 E1/DS1s, eight 10/100 Mbps Ethernet ports, three DS3s/E3s, and one OC-3/STM-1. The OME 6110 doesn’t currently ship with Gigabit Ethernet support, but Nortel officials say that an add-in card is in the works.

Dave Dunphy, a principal analyst for optical infrastructure with consultancy Current Analysis Inc., says Nortel’s new OME 6110—and the OME line in general—are designed to address a growing demand for small, converged access MSPP platform that can support new differentiated services.

“This is a fast evolving and very competitive segment with strong growth potential, with new entrants jockeying to find positioning out of the starting gate that will give them plenty of room for offering differentiation,” he writes. “Nortel adds further Tier 1 competition. But Nortel has achieved some solid differentiation in terms of breadth of interfaces supported, the strong DCC support, and support for both TL-1 and SNMP directly from the NE, and carrier class Ethernet in a small package.”

Of course, Nortel isn’t exactly the only vendor that’s focusing on this market segment. Giants like Cisco and Fujitsu are already delivering similar solutions, while smaller vendors—such as Turin, White Rock and ECI—have also introduced offerings. At the same time, Dunphy speculates, the OME 6110’s broad selection of interfaces helps make it a competitive offering in this space.

“While the competition in this emerging product segment is growing rapidly and gaining significantly more attention from Tier 1 vendors, considerable differentiation between vendors exists despite the degree of consensus on the need for this product category,” he writes.

In addition, Dunphy says, Nortel also managed to obscure—or at the very least dilute—the impact of Cisco’s own significant optical networking announcements, “giving [Cisco] little time to bask in the limelight before encountering a new competitive challenge.”

In the end, Dunphy suggests, Nortel’s OME 6110 just might make for a winning product entry. “The jury is still out on what the exact carrier requirements will be for this emerging sub-category of small, carrier-class MSPPs and MSTPs, but Nortel has staked out good differentiation and will be in a good position to gain trials,” he concludes. -Stephen Swoyer