June 15th, 2007 - FRM401 fiber concentrator is launched

RAL brings FRM401 - a high density 48 port fiber optic media converter chassis

Portland, Oregon, June 15th, 2007 - RAL Communications Corp., a dedicated distributor of fiber optic data communication equipments is now launching a new high density fiber optic aggregation solution for data centers.

The strength of FRM401 solution is the ability to offer a very low cost per fiber optic port for carriers and service providers looking to expand into active Ethernet FTTH and FTTB projects.

The product is a high density chassis that support up to 48 ports of fiber optic media converters. FRM401 is a 19" or 23" rack mountable chassis that accomodates 12 media converter cards, redundant power supply and has the option of centralized management through SNMP.

Each card loaded into FRM401 has 4 ports, bringing capacity up to 48 fiber data connections in only a 4U rack height. FRM401 cards are Fast Ethernet covering distances from 2Km up to 120Km on dual fiber circuits or up to 80Km on WDM, single strand fiber optic connections. Multimode or singlemode media converters can be installed simultaneously in a single chassis, as well as various distances or different type of optical connectors.

The chassis can be equipped with hot-swappable redundant power supply. The power supply units are AC or DC type according to the customer environment and data center specifications.

The most valuable feature of the FRM401 is the centralized management through SNMP. FRM401-SNMP is an optional module, that allows management based on the SNMP protocol. An MIB file is provided for integration in most Network Management Systems (NMS) available on market. Ther is also a free GUI for Windows application that allows independent management of a limited number of chassis (up to 20 chassis) for one data center.

Although product is not a young one, it is the first time it hits the market in the US. FRM401 chassis solution is a very successful product in Europe, where several projects of FTTH and FTTB Ethernet from major carriers (telco and MSO) have chosen FRM401 as the main solution for high density fiber optic aggregation. More than one thousand units of FRM401 solution have been sold in Europe so far, making the FRM401 a well proved and reliable choice at a very affordable cost per fiber optic port.