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Press Release: GL Enhances PacketExpert™
with MPLS and VLAN (Q-in-Q)

Gaithersburg, Maryland, USA - July 25, 2011 - GL Communications Inc., announced today the release of its enhanced PacketExpert™ with MPLS and VLAN (Q-in-Q) network testing capabilities. Speaking to the press, Mr. Jagdish Vadalia Senior Manager at GL said, " PacketExpert™ is a portable Quad Port Ethernet / VLAN / MPLS / IP / UDP Tester with 4 Electrical Ethernet Ports (10/100/1000 Mbps) and 2 Optical Ports (1000 Mbps). PacketExpert™ connects to a Notebook PC through a USB 2.0 interface and each port provides independent Ethernet / VLAN / MPLS / IP / UDP testing at wirespeed for applications such as BERT, RFC 2544, and Loopback."

He explained, "MPLS is a switching technology that achieves low latency, high throughput, and an efficient routing scheme for all types of traffic. Quality of Service (QoS) and traffic engineering are inherent features of MPLS. Testing essentially involves sending appropriately formatted MPLS packets through an MPLS provisioned network and verifying:

  • Connectivity - traffic is properly routed to the correct destination, i.e Label Switching Path
  • Performance - QoS characterstics like Packet Loss, Bandwidth, and Latency are controlled within defined limits

Both end to end testing from customer edge to customer edge as well as testing within the core MPLS network is important. GL's PacketExpert™ does both and it supports up to 3 MPLS stacked labels. Multiple MPLS label stacks are particularly useful in testing MPLS VPN implementations, multiple MPLS providers and MPLS tunnels. Supports full editing options for MPLS header and provides detailed statistics.

PacketExpert™ allows users to configure the Label Value, the Class of Service (CoS) bits and the Time-to-Live (TTL) for each label, in addition to selecting the number of MPLS labels. It automatically inserts the Bottom of Stack flag. Also, MPLS related statistics like the Packet Counts per Stack position are provided for detailed analysis.

PacketExpert™ combines MPLS testing with the BERT and RFC 2544 test capabilities. It can send MPLS enabled streams in its BERT and RFC 2544 tests and report various QoS measurements like Bit Error Rate, Throughput, Frame Loss, and Latency."

Mr. Vadalia further explained, "VLAN stands for Virtual Local Area Network. As the name suggests, VLAN technology enables creation of multiple logical networks on the same physical Ethernet LAN. It achieves this by using the VLAN tagging. Stacked VLAN (Q-in-Q) support has been added to the BERT and RFC 2544 tests of PacketExpert™. BERT and RFC 2544 support VLAN tagging up to 3 levels and as part of configuring the BERT / RFC 2544 test stream."

He added, "Users can configure the VLAN ID, the Priority bits and even the Ether/Type field for each VLAN stack. Also, users can select the number of VLAN stacks and enabling Q-in-Q in BERT and RFC 2544 testing permits verification of VLAN QoS requirements."



About GL Communications Inc

Founded in 1986, GL Communications Inc. is a leading supplier of test, monitoring, and analysis equipment for TDM, Wireless, IP and VoIP networks. Unlike conventional test equipment, GL's test platforms provide visualization, capture, storage, and convenient features like portability, remotability, and scripting.

GL's TDM Analysis & Emulation line of products includes T1, E1, T3, E3, OC-3, OC-12, STM-1, STM-4, analog four-wire, and analog two-wire interface cards, external portable pods, and complete system solutions. Capabilities include voiceband traffic analysis and emulation across all traffic types (voice, digits, tones, fax, modem), all protocols (ISDN, SS7, GR-303, Frame Relay, HDLC, V5.X, ATM, GSM, GPRS, LTE, etc.), and with capacities up to thousands of channels. Our newest products provide astonishing capacity and capture capability up to and including gigabit speeds.

GL's VoIP and IP products generate / analyze thousands of calls and traffic simultaneously with traffic types such as frames, packets, voice files, digits, video, tones, noise, and fax. Almost all codecs are supported including G.711, G.729, AMR, EVRC-A,B,C, GSM, iSAC, and many more. Additional features include visual analysis, real-time listening, and recording. The product line also includes Ethernet / IP Testing capability that simulates and checks frame transport and throughput parameters of Ethernet and IP networks, including delay, errors and other impairments.

GL's Voice Quality Testing (VQT) product line complements all of GL's products. Using ITU-standard algorithms (PAMS, PSQM, and PESQ), GL's VQT provides a widely accepted solution for assessing voice quality in the telecom industry. Voice Quality Testing across multiple networks (T1, E1, T3, E3, OC-3, OC-12, VoIP, Wireless, and Landline) are all available.

GL's Wireless Products perform protocol analysis and voice quality assessment on GSM, CDMA, UMTS, and LTE networks. Connections can be made to any wireless phone with automated call control, GPS mapping and real-time signal measurements.

GL's Echo Canceller testing solutions provide the broadest range of simulation and analysis, including line and acoustic echo. GL's compliance testing per G.168. G.167 and P.340 across TDM, IP, VoIP and Wireless networks is widely accepted in the industry.

GL's wireless VQT solutions help assessing impairments to voice quality such as poor mobile phone quality, voice compression and decompression algorithms, delay, loss and gain in speech levels, noise, acoustic and landline echo, and other distortions are easily assessed and accurately measured.

GL's Handheld data testers can test a wide variety of communications facilities and equipment including T1, fractional T1, E1, fractional E1, T3 and E3 modems, multiplexers, CSU, DSUs, T1 CSUs, DTUs, NTUs and TIUs and more. The testers provide convenience, economy, and portability for almost any interface, including RS232, RS-422, RS-530, X.21, T1, E1, T3, E3, and many others.

GL's Network Surveillance and Monitoring products include Probes for TDM, IP, VoIP, ATM, and Wireless networks. An open standards based approach provides a scalable, feature rich, real-time access to network characteristics. Centralized or distributed access, efficient transport and database loading allow compatibility with 3rd party and standards based monitoring systems.

For more information about GL's complete line of products,

Contact:
Shelley Sharma
Phone: 301-670-4784 ext. 114
E-mail: info@gl.com


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