Neutral Carrier Ethernet Exchange (NCEX)

Without the need to install a bespoke Ethernet PoP, NewTelco customers can take advantage of the flexibility and cost-efficiency offered by our innovative Neutral Carrier Ethernet Exchange (NCEX) Service to connect to the world’s leading service providers.

NCEX is currently available in Frankfurt am Main. The NCEX service is based on the Metro Ethernet Forum (MEF) service definition of a Point-to-Point Ethernet Private Line (EPL) service or a Point-to-Point Ethernet Virtual Private Line (EVPL) service. The main difference between the two service definitions is the ability to multiplex more than one Ethernet Virtual Circuit (EVC) over a single physical interface.

In its simplest form, a single physical interface at either end of an EVC is used to connect two UNI ports, as illustrated in Figure below. The service provided between the two UNI interfaces is mainly transparent – the only exception being the possible discarding of Layer 2 control protocol frames.

As EPL strives to provide a service that is as close to being transparent as possible, in cases where the bandwidth of the EVC connecting the two UNIs is less than the bandwidth of the physical interface at either of the two UNIs, it is the customer’s responsibility to shape the traffic accordingly and handle the prioritisation of the mandatory Layer 2 control protocols.

In addition to simple Point-to-Point E-LINE, NCEX also offers multiplexed service instances where more than one EVC is provided via a single physical interface, commonly referred to as an EVPL. As illustrated in Figure, Multiple EVCs can terminate at a single physical interface, with traffic at such multiplexed interfaces being delineated using the (customer’s) VLAN assignment (CE-VLAN). The multiplexed interface uses these VLAN assignments to map the received traffic to the correct EVC.

This platform offers port rates and physical interfaces ranging from 10/100 BASE-T Ethernet/Fast Ethernet up to 10 GBit/s Ethernet. All services can be set up within 24 hours. The delivery platform is based on the Ciena Ethernet service aggregation switch – purpose-built for carrier Ethernet to deliver cost-effective capacity, scalability, and resiliency.

Our NCEX platform allows service providers to keep pace with the constantly increasing demand for bandwidth and next-generation services that support business, mobile backhaul, transport and residential applications in metro networks. The platform supports 30.000+ VSIs. These completely isolate customer traffic in their own switching domain without the need for MAC (Media Access Control) learning on the platform. The traffic within each EVC is completely separate from any other traffic streams crossing the platform. Additionally, the platform can be scaled to accommodate a large number of sub-interfaces (attachment points), allowing for smooth growth and large-scale deployment.