Metaswitch announced that it is working with the Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute or “ETRI (News - Alert)” Korea to build Carrier Ethernet / Packet-Optical Transport System or “P-OTS” systems that use MPLS Transport Profile or “MPLS-TP.”

The new P-OTS will address the increasing bandwidth and management demands placed by 4G/LTE (News - Alert) networks on wireless backhaul and backbone networks, according to ETRI officials.

“4G/LTE is going to require a major overhaul of Korean wireless networks, forcing a migration to MPLS-TP Carrier Ethernet / P-OTS systems,” Tae Whan Yoo, director in ETRI's optical Internet department, said. “We've been very happy with the relationship with Metaswitch, and extending it to include MPLS-TP will help us drive that migration over the next few years.”

Both ETRI and Metaswitch have been partners since 2004, working in the area of optical switching systems, using Metaswitch's MPLS and IP Routing network software products. This initiative builds on that into the packet-optical arena, company officials said.

Under this partnership, ETRI will develop MPLS-TP systems that support both packet and optical networks, to provide unified transport capabilities across both wireless backhaul and backbone networks.

The networks will offer the required resilience and manageability, while providing familiar QoS, protection and restoration, and OAM capabilities, the company said.

Clive Partridge, general manager of Metaswitch's Network Technologies Division, reiterated the fact that there is immense market momentum behind MPLS-TP as wireless providers look to deploy 4G/LTE.

Partridge said they chose to work with ETRI as they build MPLS-TP systems that help providers successfully build and manage 4G/LTE networks.

Metaswitch provides technologies and solutions that power the migration of communications networks to open, next-generation architectures. The company has developed portable network protocol source code based on its N-BASE portability technology for over 25 years.

Recently Metaswitch announced a partnership with CounterPath (News - Alert) Corporation to jointly develop and market enhanced unified communications capabilities that extend voice, video and messaging services to desktop PCs and mobile devices, TMCnet reported.