Equipment vendors are announcing new gear and new partnerships in the Ethernet-over-copper space at the NXTcomm trade show this week.

On Monday, Calix announced a partnership with Aktino to resell the latter’s AK4000 and AK3000 products. The 3000 is designed for long-reach 45 Mb/s DS-3 services over long stretches of copper, and the 4000 delivers 10 to 50 Mb/s carrier Ethernet services. Eventually, Calix plans to integrate Aktino’s technology—which employs a multiple in/ multiple out technique commonly used in wireless networks and discrete multi-tone modulation—into its own access platforms.

Nortel Networks is announcing its own Ethernet-over-copper partnership at the show. Next month, the company is adding a plesiochronous digital hierarchy (PDH) gateway to its Optical Multiservice Edge platform that will allow carriers to offer Ethernet services over existing copper lines. The gateway is intended for use with customer premises equipment from Anda Networks, Nortel’s new partner. Specifically, the PDH gateway will work with Anda’s EtherReach 2000 series of products, delivering carrier Ethernet services over bonded G.SHDSL or bonded DS1s, DS3s and OC3s.

Adtran meanwhile, is promoting the ability of its Total Access 5000 platform—combined with the 800-series Ethernet-over-copper gear it unveiled last month—as a way to allow carriers to quickly deploy Ethernet-over-copper services throughout the entirety of their network footprints.

“Carriers never start central office buildouts [of Ethernet-over-copper gear] because they can’t hit 100% of customers from day one,” said Eric Vallone, product management director for Adtran’s carrier networks division.