Towards 100 gigabit carrier ethernet transport networks

Ethernet as a transport technology has, up to now, lacked the features such as network layer architecture, customer separation and manageability that carriers require for wide-scale deployment. However, with the advent of PBB-TE and TMPLS, it is now possible to use Ethernet as a transport technology, making the use of Ethernet as a convergence layer for Next Generation Networks a distinct possibility.

Triple Play services, in particular IPTV, are expected to be a main drivers for carrier Ethernet, however, a number of challenges must be addressed including QoS enabled control plane, enhanced OAM functions, survivability and the increased bandwidth requirements of carrier class systems. This article provides an overview of PBB-TE and T-MPLS and demonstrates how IPTV services can be realized in the framework of Carrier Ethernet.

In addition we provide a case study on performing bit error rate (BER) measurements on the aggregated 100G stream.