DATA SHEET

Packet M6424 TSN Switch
Flexible Fronthaul and Backhaul Solution for 4G and Beyond
Industry’s First TSN, Radio over Ethernet (RoE) RAN
xHaul Solution

at the remote radio head (RRH) along with adding RRH small
cell eCPRI traffic and Ethernet services.

With 4G LTE networks increasing capacity in parallel with ramping
5G and Ethernet services, operators must evolve their RAN
transport and access architectures. In the past, operators often
relied on dedicated dark fiber which can be expensive and slowto deploy.

Extending fiber capacity, the M6424 speeds time to market,ensures a smooth evolution to 5G, creates additional revenue
streams by enabling new services, and substantially reduces thetotal cost of ownership (TCO).
The M6424 offers investment protection across traditional
CPRI radios and enhanced or eCPRI ones, including ORAN
solutions. Operators are migrating to virtual RAN (vRAN) or cloudarchitectures which require high performance xHaul with theeconomics of the M6424 TSN solution. The M6424 is an ORAN
compliant solution to ensure operators can implement today
while supporting a graceful network evolution over time.

Fortunately, multiplexing packet technology can enhance fiber
capacity using time sensitive networking (TSN), also known
as Ethernet multiplexing. This allows blending time sensitive
mobile services, such as 4G CPRI and 5G eCPRI using RoE withpreemption alongside standard Ethernet services. HFR Networks
has developed a TSN based solution to address urgent xHaul
requirements, including delivering higher performance and costeffective access services on a converged Ethernet access network.

Key Benefits:• Significantly lowers the total TCO for fronthaul service providers:

M-Series TSN Solutions: CPRI, eCPRI and Ethernet
Multiplexing for xHaul
The M6424 platform, is a cost-effective, scalable, high capacity
TSN switch that delivers superior economics and enables theability to combine RAN transport with other traffic types suchas Ethernet business services on a common infrastructure.
Purpose built for time sensitive networks, the M6424’s stateof-the-art, high performance design enables advanced mobile
networking architectures and applications with nanosecond
timing requirements.

••The M6424 connects radios with converged CPRI and eCPRI
to bridge traditional mobile networks and Ethernet services,supporting modern centralized or cloud-based architectures.
Encapsulating CPRI traff ic, the M6424 utilizes IEEE 1914.3
compliant RoE mappers with integrated synchronization toprovide higher performance, simplified operations and significant
cost savings.

•The M6424 is used across both central off ice and remotehardened environments. This includes the ability to centralize
the fronthaul aggregation of radios to baseband units (BBUs)
and cloud topologies feeding a top-of-rack (TOR) configuration
to virtualized baseband units (vBBUs). Hardened remote
deployments enable service blending, with CPRI aggregation•Radio Equipment
Control (REC)

CPRIRadio overEthernet••

50% lower cost, 90% turn-up time savings, 75% footprint
reduction, and simplified spares inventory managementcompared to transponder based offerings.
Simplif ies and the network to reduce deployment andoperational costs while simultaneously supporting multiple
services: 4G LTE, 5G and Ethernet services.
Supports 800 Gbps-scale performance by aggregating andswitching radio traffic as the fronthaul links continue to scale
from: 2.5G, 10G, 25G and 100G. Preemption enables the supportof mixed Ethernet services along with mobile traffic.
Enables multiple carrier isolation using a shared infrastructurewith independent carrier services and structure agnostic
mapping mode for encapsulation and transport of radio traffic.
Provides an open, standards-based solution to normalize
operations across leading 3rd party RAN suppliers – ending
vendor lock-in and eliminating interoperability problems in
mixed CPRI implementations.
Allows better utilization of deployed fiber infrastructure forremote radio head connectivity thus reducing costs and delays
associated with additional fiber investments.
Greatly reduces footprint by blending 4G CPRI using IEEE 1914.3
RoE, 5G eCPRI, and Ethernet high speed data services over asingle compact 1RU hardened TSN platform.

IEEE 1914.3

Radio overEthernet

CPRI

TSN, OAM, Protection

eCPRI Radio Equipment
Control (eREC)

eCPRI

Aggregation Switch

Ethernet

eCPRI

Radio
Equipment (RE)eCPRI Radio
Equipment (eRE)

L2/L3
IEEE 1588

PTP, SyncEIEEE 1588

Ethernet

Customer Premises
Equipment (CPE)

M6424 Switch: CPRI, eCPRI, and Radio over Ethernet
WWW.HFRNETWORKS.COM1SYSTEM SPECIFICATIONS – Packet M-Series TSN Switch
System Characteristics

Radio over Ethernet

Dimensions (H x W x D)

44mm x 440mm x 383mm

Weight4.5 kg (9.9 lbs)

Power Consumption

240 W (Fully Loaded)

Mounting Type1U: 19”, 21” or 23” Rack Mountable

Port Configuration

4 Ports: QSFP28
24 Ports: SFP+/SFP28

Switching Capacity

800 Gbps

Power/Fan Slots

2 Power Slots, 2 Fan Slots

Hot Swappable FANs per Unit

4 per Module for Redundancy

Interfaces

Structure
Agnostic

IEEE 1914.3: Radio over Ethernet Encapsulations
w/Structure Agnostic Mode

TunnelingIEEE 1914.3: Radio over Ethernet Encapsulations
w/Tunneling ModeStructure
Aware

IEEE 1914.3: Radio over Ethernet Encapsulations
w/Structure Aware Mode

Time Sensitive NetworkIEEE 802.1CMTime-Sensitive Networking for FronthaulIEEE 802.1Qbu

Frame Preemption

IEEE 802.3br

Interspersing Express Traffic

Time Synchronization

SFP+/SFP28 Ports

24 Ports
Up to 25GbE, 10G/25G eCPRI,CPRI 3/5/7/8/10

QSFP28 Ports

4 Ports
Up to 100GbE, 25GbE or 10GbE
Each QSFP28 port can be 4 x
25GbE or 4 x 10GbE

Timing I/O

1PPS In/Out
10MHz In/Out
ToD Output

Management Port

100/1000 Mbps Ethernet RJ-45

Console Port

RS-232C RJ-45

Precision TimingProtocol

IEEE 1588v2 GM/BC/OC
G.8273.2 Class C/D

PTP Profile

G.8275.1: PTP Telecom Profile for Phase/Time
Synchronization with Full Timing Support
from the Network

Synchronous
Ethernet

G.8262: Timing Characteristics of a
Synchronous Ethernet Equipment Clock
G.8263: Timing Characteristics of Packetbased Equipment Clocks
G.8264: Distribution of Timing Information
Through Packet Networks

OAM

Power/Environmental

Ethernet OAM

IEEE 802.3ah, TWAMP Reflector

Hot Swappable DC Power Supply Unit

Fault Control

Alarm Severity: Critical, Major, Minor

Power Requirements

Classification
LevelUnit, Module, Port

Performance
Monitoring

15 MIN/24 HRTelemetry

Telemetry Streaming gRPC

Loopback

Local / Remote

Network Management

Authentication

RADIUS

Operating

EMS (Server, Client), Local Craft Terminal

Regulatory & ComplianceProtocols

NETCONF/YANG, SNMP Trap

FCC 47 CFR Part 15 Class A, CE Mark, UL 60950-1, IEC 60950-1–48V DC (-40 to -56V DC)

Hot Swappable AC Power Supply Unit
Power Requirements

110/220 AC (90 to 240V AC)

Environmental

Operating: -40 °C to 65 °C
Storage: -40 °C to 70 °C (GR-3108 Class 2)
Humidity: Up to 85% (Non-condensing)IC (Canada EMI)

L2 Features
Double Tagging

802.1Q and QinQVZ TPR 9205, Issue 7, October 2018

VLAN Translation

VLAN Translation

Spanning TreeProtocols

IEEE 802.1D Spanning Tree Protocol
IEEE 802.1w Rapid Spanning Tree Protocol
IEEE 802.1s Multiple Spanning Tree Protocol

EU RoHS 2: Directive 2011/65/EU, EU RoHS 3: Directive 2015/863/EU
with Exemptions 6 (c), 7 (a), and 7 (c)-1

H-QoS

Three-level H-QoS

Link Aggregation

LACP, Static LAG

Jumbo Frame

9K Bytes

NEBS Level 3 Certified
GR-63, GR-1089, GR-3108 Class 2

L3 Features
Routing

Static, BGP, ISIS, MPLS-SR

Dual Stack

IPv4 and IPv6 Routing

For sales & support information, please contact
a Ribbon sales representative in your region.

LLDP

802.1AB LLDP (Link Layer Discovery Protocol)

ACL

L2 – L7Ribbon Communications Operating Company, Inc.
30 Hasivim Street, Petach Tikva 4959388, Israel
info.rbbn.com/eci-now-ribbon

WWW.HFRNETWORKS.COM®

info@HFRnetworks.com

Copyright ©2023 HFR Networks, Inc. All rights reserved. HFR Networks, the HFR Networks logo, flexiHaul and the flexiHaul logo are trademarks of HFR, Inc. Other trademarks are the property of their respective holders.
Part # DS-M6424-102023