11/29/2004 -- As part of an aggressive retrofitting of its optical networking line, Cisco Systems Inc. last month announced the ONS 15310-CL, a new “pizza box” entry designed for remote terminal or customer-located applications.

Cisco positions its ONS 15310-CL as a cost-effective SONET multiservice provisioning platform (MSPP) that provides integrated support for DS1, DS3 and 10/100 Ethernet transport, along with Layer 2 and 3 switched Ethernet services, in a compact 1RU ( “pizza box”) chassis.

According to Lenny Chin, a senior analyst for optical infrastructure with consultancy Current Analysis, there’s a lot to like in the new 15310-CL.

For starters, Chen says, Cisco’s pizza box entry nicely complements its existing installed base of 40,000 ONS 15454 SONET MSPP customers, and should bring more MDU and SME customers onto the 15454, as well. In addition, Chen writes, “The new ONS-15454 fits into RBOC transport networks as it has completed two of the three Telcordia OSSs that are used by all major RBOCs.”

At the same time, Cisco’s new pizza box offering isn’t the last word in SONET MSPP offerings—at least, not for all customers.

“But ONS 15310-CL does not offer five 9s availability, which are the telco standard, does not support the GigE interfaces which new platforms from start-ups have, and does not come with a wall-mounted option for tight building spaces that vendors such as Fujitsu offer,” he writes.

That being said, the ONS 15310-CL’s support for a wide variety of interface standards leaves most competitors in the dust, according to Chen. Cisco’s pizza box offering offers fixed 21 DS1s, three DS3s—or EC1s—and pluggable SFP optics for OC-3, OC-12 and OC-3/12 multi-rate. It can also features an expansion port that lets customers supplement its out-of-the-box configuration with either an eight-port Layer 1 10/100 Ethernet transport module or an eight-port 10/100 Layer 2 and 3 switched Ethernet module. It also supports T1 BITS timing, alarm contacts, LAN management, local and craft management, and AC or DC power options, writes Chen. The upshot, he says, is that none of Cisco’s big competitors offer the same variety of features in a small pizza box chassis.

“Lucent, Fujitsu and Nortel do not offer this combination of DS1s, DS3 and 10/100 Ethernet ports in a 1RU chassis,” he points out.

This flexibility comes at a cost, however. “While installing fixed interfaces on a small 1RU chassis saves costs, lack of modularity for unprotected facility ports will lower the availability from 99.999 percent to 99.997 percent,” he writes. “Cisco has calculated that this results in less than 14 minutes per year, which may be a small premium for cost-effective access.”

This makes the ONS 15310-CL a far from straightforward proposition for many service providers. “Service providers need to balance ROI with risk management with respect to SLAs. While Cisco is trying to address cost-conscious needs of carrier finance departments, they are placing at risk part of their reputation, as a failure on one DS1 port will require the whole chassis to be replaced,” he concludes. “While five 9s is a concern for incumbent providers, alternate MDU providers such as MSOs and CLECs are attractive customers for the ONS 15310-CL. These providers are more keen to rapid ROI and adopting new technology. Over time, they may prove that the MTBF of a single-card platform is strong enough to overcome the lack of five 9s availability.” -Stephen Swoyer