Fujitsu Microelectronics Europe (FME) announced the successful demonstration of a fully functional, IP-based video-on-demand application at the Wireless Broadband Forum in Cambridge, UK. The solution combined FME's AXEL-F, ETHOS and WiMAX devices to deliver a high-resolution video-stream from a server across optical and wireless networks to an end user.

The demonstration network was developed to comply fully with the protocols that will form the backbone of the next generation of wireless broadband roll-out, such as Ethernet over SDH/SONET (ETHOS) (MB87M2181) and WiMAX (MB87M3400). This demonstration proves FME has the capability to offer a cost-effective, highly-integrated solution that will provide a fast route to market for Telcos.

The demand for broadband services is growing dramatically, and as the bandwidth of transmission increases, it is expected that traditional media such as television transmission and newer technologies like TV-on-demand, digital library access, video conferencing and fast Internet access will be provided by IP-based networking.

The easiest and lowest-cost method of providing these high-quality services is by using an optical Metropolitan Area Network (MAN), with a WiMAX connection over the last mile to the customer. FME based its demonstration on this infrastructure to show the market that the company has a complete range of products available for immediate deployment.

The demonstration featured the AXEL-F (MB87Q3140) device extracting the requested content and forwarding the data-stream to the ETHOS ASSP, which then routed the data-stream across a protected carrier class optical MAN. Another ETHOS device then dropped the data stream to FME's WiMAX device for transmission over a broadband wireless interface. The video-stream was then picked up by another WiMAX device.

FME had previously shown that the company had the capability of live video-streaming using its ETHOS and WiMAX devices. The point of this demonstration was to prove the company has now added the ability to provide video-on-demand and digital library access, which will allow access to the full range of services that Telcos expect to offer from IP-based networking.

The key to the demonstration was the newly released AXEL-F device, which is based on FME's leading-edge 10Gbps switching technology. The AXEL-F device was developed to locate, extract and deliver requested content from high-capacity storage servers. The highly-integrated device has all the features necessary to undertake the required functions rapidly.

The AXEL-F device was supported in the demonstration by FME's WiMAX and ETHOS solutions that were released earlier this year. The WiMAX SoC fully complies with IEE 802.16-2004, and can fulfil both the base station and the subscriber station roles. The device has an integrated MAC and PHY mixed-signal baseband processor designed to support frequencies up to 11GHz and bandwidths from 1.75MHz to 20MHz.

FME's ETHOS solution, developed in collaboration with Netherlands company AimCom, was launched in February 2005. The device was designed to offer full-rate Gigabit Ethernet and E1/DS1 access in Metro and Access networks.