Luminous Networks ^TM announced new features for its award-winning PacketWave packet ring access platforms. These features, collectively called TLS-TE (Transparent LAN Service -- Traffic Engineered), directly address critical requirements that new telco IPTV services demand of the access network infrastructure to enable scalable, economical and secure services deployment. Critical factors for successful and profitable rollout of IPTV are efficient multicast, hard Quality of Service (QoS), sophisticated network resource management, and transport security.

Additionally, service providers can utilize Luminous Networks' TLS-TE feature set to enable high quality VoIP, VPN, and other premium video and data services. As service providers offer triple play services over broadband DSL and PON, transport solutions must meet stringent QoS requirements while efficiently delivering services over access networks. TLS-TE meets these essential requirements while also enabling higher network security. For instance, connections directly between different DIA customers on the same TLS-TE domain can be blocked easily using configuration tools, preventing unauthorized network infiltration. TLS-TE also supports Ethernet VPN, which is becoming increasingly important to geographically dispersed enterprises. In all cases, guaranteed end-to-end QoS is delivered without nailing up bandwidth per customer or service, allowing more services and more revenue.

"Luminous' TLS-TE gives our customers a competitive advantage over other solutions," stated Dr. Robert Kalman, Luminous Networks Senior Director of Technical Marketing. He continued, "The robustness of our integrated solutions and their economic benefits allow our customers to offer services like IPTV more rapidly at competitive prices to more customers, quickly realizing more revenue."

The Luminous Management System (LMS) provides sophisticated network resource allocation and management, allowing service providers to tailor QoS to a service offering and/or customers' requirements. TLS-TE enables service providers to serve more customers with greater network efficiency for services requiring multicast, guaranteed bandwidth and low latency. These advantages are particularly important in access networks with limited bandwidth resources.

"The combination of simple configuration, QoS guarantees with the bandwidth efficiency of an Ethernet LAN required for voice and video services represents an important new class of Ethernet," stated Scott Clavenna, Chief Analyst with Heavy Reading. "These enablers help to hasten the roll-out of profitable triple-play services."

TLS-TE is compliant with the Metro Ethernet Forum's E-LAN service type definition, adding unique traffic engineering and service management capabilities. The features of TLS-TE include:

• Guaranteed QoS for voice and video services by allowing specification of bandwidth and latency thresholds required by these real-time applications.
• Sub-50 ms service restoration for span breaks and multi-homing support for redundant head-end sites.
• Operational simplification by enabling single view configuration and provisioning of entire voice, video, or broadband data domains, each of which may consist of hundreds of DSLAMs/PON OLTs and multiple head-end sites.
• Access bandwidth optimization by providing bandwidth guarantees only where needed (e.g., between head-end and DSLAM sites) without locking up bandwidth when traffic is not present, maximizing bandwidth available for all services and increasing sellable network capacity.

Availability
TLS-TE is available immediately on Luminous Networks PacketWave products through the most recent software release, including the E500 Series Packet Ring Access Platforms, as well as the C and M-Series Packet Ring Switching Platforms. TLS-TE is enabled and managed through the Luminous Management System. There is no additional charge for the feature set.