Copper Mountain's T1 Solution

Copper Mountain Networks, provider of DSL equipment to CLECs and ISPs, announced a T1 solution that may enable providers to use DSL equipment, rather than dedicated T1 equipment, for T1 termination.

by Wayne Kawamoto [January 18, 2001]

Copper Mountain Networks announced a new T1 integrated access device (IAD) and new T1 line cardthat should enable broadband providers to extend the reach of converged high-speed data and multi-line voice services to customers located at a great distance from a phone company central office (CO).

The devices
Like Copper Mountain's CopperRocket 508 DSL IAD, the CopperRocket 508T is Media Gateway Control Protocol (MGCP) enabled. This means that it should be compatible with next-generation, distributed, Softswitch voice technology that will let carriers set up business-class voice networks without purchasing expensive Class 5 switches. The new CopperRocket 508T IAD is designed to work with CopperEdge DSL concentrators equipped with Copper Mountain's new CopperEdge T1 Line Card.

The CopperEdge T1 Line Card has 12 ports, is hot-swappable in CopperEdge 200 and CopperEdge 150 DSL concentrators, and may be deployed concurrently in the same chassis with Copper Mountain's CopperEdge Full-Rate ADSL, G.lite, IDSL, and SDSL Line Cards. Offering plug-and-play ease of use, the T1 solution should enable providers to use Copper Mountain's industry-leading Internet Protocol (IP) service intelligence—IP IQ—to deliver value-added voice and data services over T1 lines to customers who are too far from COs to receive the full benefits of DSL technology.

The technology
According to Copper Mountain, its CopperRocket 508T is the only commercially available, T1-capable IAD to interoperate with both next-generation, softswitch packet-voice solutions and IP-based GR-303 Voice Gateways. Providers who use the CopperRocket 508T IAD in conjunction with CopperEdge concentrators equipped with CopperEdge T1 Line Cards may be able to use next-generation voice solutions to offer cost-effective, business-class broadband voice services, such as multi-line voice, voice mail, call forwarding and conferencing, at almost any distance from a CO.

Copper Mountain says that unlike legacy voice solutions, which rely on expensive and complex Time-Division Multiplexing (TDM) circuit switches located at subscriber end offices and regional toll switching centers to control and route voice traffic, next-generation packet-voice solutions divide network functions among lower-cost broadband voice devices, including IADs, trunk gateways, and Softswitches, which are optimally distributed throughout the network and properly sized for each point of presence. Using the MGCP signaling protocol, these devices should perform call control and routing for subscriber telephony traffic between packet-voice endpoints or between packet and circuit-switched subscribers.

The MGCP-enabled CopperRocket 508T IAD is designed to offer toll-quality voice and data services over T1 at selectable speeds from 128 kbps to 1.568 Mbps. The IAD should connect readily to existing voice and data equipment at the customer premise, including analog phone, fax, and key systems, and it is supposed to provide lifeline phone services, even during loss of power.

The CopperRocket 508T IAD digitizes, packetizes, and optionally compresses the end user's voice and data signals, then combines the traffic for transport over T1, assigning priority to voice to ensure end-to-end Quality of Service (QoS). According to Copper Mountain, the IAD supports up to eight voice connections; and when on-demand voice ports are idle, it dynamically allocates bandwidth for data services. With no hardware switches, no configuration parameters, and no end-user software, the CopperRocket 508T IAD conforms to the Copper Mountain ZIP (Zero Installation Procedure) for subscriber equipment.

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