As service providers struggle to cope with capacity issues in their networks, Broadcom is launching a new high-capacity network switch to support 10 Gigabit Ethernet connectivity in mobile backhaul networks.
The StrataXGS switch is aimed at the network equipment OEM market, and is designed to sit at a pre-aggregation point in the network — in the case of small cells, probably at a nearby macro site in order to provide backhaul for multiple small cells.
According to Broadcom, the new switch offers 40% input/output bandwidth increase over the previous generation in its lineup, a forwarding table that is more than double previous sizes, and the ability to support between 1 Gig to 10 Gig Ethernet backhaul. The switch supports up to 128 total channels.
“We’re really in the middle of a transformation in terms of wireless cellular networks, driven by smartphones,” said Nick Kucharewski, Broadcom’s senior director of product marketing. “With the exponential increase in data traffic, we also need a significant increase in bandwidth of the wired mobile backhaul network that sits behind the wireless networks.”
He added that new equipment is needed to support two ongoing trends in the backhaul environment: the need for more bandwidth to support LTE, and the movement toward the extensive use of small cells in the network — where backhaul considerations have been a major hurdle for deployment. Cost per user and power consumption are two of the primary factors at play, Kucharewski said, particularly in small cell deployments with smaller equipment hung in public spaces that is likely to have little room for good air flow or fans.
Overall, he said, the increase in available bandwidth in the equipment means that operators can architect their network more simply.
“I see this as a progression,” Kucharewski said, “As new systems are deployed with next-generation networks, you can provide more scale and serve more end points with fewer systems.”
Other network providers have also recently made announcements of equipment designed to support larger-scale, faster next-generation networks. Cisco just launched a new network router, and F5 announced a scalable firewall solution as part of its Big IQ platform.
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