Turin Networks unveiled a new edge aggregation system today that bonds T-1 lines together to deliver Ethernet services over copper infrastructure.

The vendor’s new Traverse PacketEdge 1200 bonds up to eight T-1s to enable services up to 12 Mb/s. It uses a layer 2 protocol, multilink PPP (point-to-point protocol), to bond T-1s in an approach that requires an edge router not supplied by Turin. But service providers already have plenty of edge routers deployed at corporate customer premises, Turin said.

Some edge routers already offer T-1 bonding using PPP, but they require the addition of expensive protocol processing cards--some with six-digit price tags. Turin claims its 1200 is less expensive and performs better than adding the necessary processing cards to existing edge routers.

“PPP bogs routers down and results in lower throughput,” said Ralph Santitoro, Turin’s director of product line management. “We let the router do what it’s good at: forwarding packets.”

Unlike systems that use DSL bonding to deliver Ethernet services over copper, Turin’s T-1 bonding approach doesn’t have distance limitations and doesn’t require loop qualification, the vendor said.

Each two-rack-unit chassis (one rack for redundancy) can support up to 336 Ethernet virtual private network services—either point-to-point or point-to-multipoint. And each chassis can support up to 672 frame relay services, mapping frame relay into Ethernet virtual local area networks (VLAN) using a data link control identifier, or DLCI, that is attached to the data frame.

Turin’s move into the Ethernet-over-copper space puts it in competition with Actelis Networks, Adva Optical Networking (through its acquisition of Covaro Networks), Anda Networks, Ciena (Anda’s partner), Ceterus Networks, Cisco Systems, Hatteras Networks, Overture Networks and Zhone Technologies.