When embarking on extensive home renovations, the services of a skilled, experienced, and trusted contractor is invaluable. Contractors work with an architect if needed, provide the necessary materials, and guide you through complex remodeling processes by coordinating all the moving parts. No matter how much you love your home, things wear out over time and there always comes a time for required maintenance.

The same can be said for network modernization. When it comes to legacy TDM networks, there are many moving parts. If you’re a telecommunications service provider, an investor-owned utility, or a government agency that owns and operates its own network – your network has likely become overly costly and complex, meaning its probably time for a little maintenance.  

Operators have a near-term motivation to migrate from TDM to packets, but the objective comes with a longer-term goal, which is to create an advanced packet-based network that supports existing revenue-generating services while also supporting new and emerging business opportunities as well.

Time-Division Multiplexing (TDM) Applications

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A modern network will not only carry TDM-based traffic over packets (Ethernet, MPLS, IP, and Segment Routing), it should also support a scalable optical layer and the ability to evolve to an analytics-driven software-defined network. This combination of features makes it possible to support market demands for gigabit-broadband connections while making it easier for operators to rapidly create, manage, and maintain services and resources in the most cost-effective manner possible.

Operators need the capability to evolutionize their networks with data-driven automation and analytics that make their systems dynamic and adaptive to change. Equipped with these capabilities, operators can confidently offer Software-Defined Wide Area Networks (SD-WANs), Virtualized Network Functions (VNFs), virtualized managed services, Ethernet Virtual Private Networks (EVPNs), and other compelling solutions to customers. Customers, in turn, can use the capabilities to control their own destinies and lower their costs by avoiding the use of rigid and complex hardware-based solutions that are often built with more features than they actually need.

Where to start?

Operators can implement and manage all of these capabilities on a converged network, supporting both legacy and modern services on a common infrastructure spanning from access nodes at the edge of the network to aggregation, metro, and core sites. A converged network avoids the need to deploy overlays, enabling various TDM traffic to run over Layer 2 Ethernet or Layer 3 MPLS services, and seamlessly interconnecting Ethernet traffic to the MPLS network without requiring additional physical components.

Whether you are a service provider, investor-owned operator, or government agency, everything you need to know can be found in our 2020 TDM-to-Packet Network Modernization Contractor Series Bundle. As your general contractor, we put together our best network modernization resources, including a white paper, industry analysis, several application notes, and even a start-to-finish infobrief for renovating or remodeling TDM legacy equipment.

When you need a contractor for small projects, rarely do you think of hiring a contractor. But no job is too big or too small, and Ciena is happy to help. To understand how to remove the constraints and bring more value to your network edge today, check out how Ciena helps to Evolutionize Your Packet Network.