The Cisco® I-Flex approach combines shared port adapters (SPAs) and SPA interface processors (SIPs), providing an extensible design that helps prioritize data, voice, and video services. Enterprise and service provider customers can take advantage of improved slot economics resulting from modular port adapters that are interchangeable across Cisco routing platforms. The I-Flex design maximizes connectivity options and offers superior service intelligence through programmable interface processors that deliver line-rate performance. I-Flex enhances speed-to-service revenue and provides a rich set of quality of service (QoS) features for premium service delivery while effectively reducing the overall cost of ownership. This data sheet contains the specifications for the Cisco 8-Port Channelized T1/E1 Shared Port Adapter.

Today's global enterprise and service provider networks require diverse networking solutions to meet both economic and evolving connectivity needs. The demand for high-density, cost-effective solutions increases as corporate intranets expand to include more regional offices and increased numbers of remote and mobile users.
The Cisco 8-Port Channelized T1/E1 SPA provides one of the greatest densities currently offered in the industry at 8 ports per SPA and up to 32 ports per SIP. At a cost per T1/E1 port less than that of a standard serial port with external channel service unit/data service unit (CSU/DSU), the Cisco 8-Port Channelized T1/E1 SPA is cost-effective for all WAN connectivity.
The SPA is designed to provide a full 8-port channelized solution for the Cisco 6500,7600 and the 12000 Series Routers. The interfaces can be channelized, fractional, or unframed (E1) with up to 256 independent High-Level Data Link Control (HDLC) channels definable for T1 and E1 applications. With these capabilities, the SPA eliminates the need for separate interface types for separate connection requirements.
Multilink Point-to-Point Protocol (MLPPP) is supported (in hardware) to enable link aggregation greater than T1 capacity. Up to eight individual T1s can be combined within a multilink bundle that appears to be a single IP link. This enables service providers to provision greater-than-T1 bandwidth incrementally, without requiring migration of the circuit and customer premises equipment (CPE) infrastructure to T3 facilities.
The Cisco 8-Port Channelized T1/E1 SPA is hot-swappable and supports service-transparent online insertion and removal (OIR), allowing removal of the SPA without impacting the interface processor and other SPAs.

Applications
The Cisco 8-Port Channelized T1/E1 SPA is ideal for service providers and large enterprises looking to cost-effectively deploy high-density terminations of multiple remote sites (Figure 2). The SPA helps enable applications that require remote and branch-office locations to be terminated on a single router in a corporate enterprise network. For service provider applications where only DSU functions are required (for example, at sites colocated with a carrier), the Cisco 8-Port Channelized T1/E1 SPA provides high port density at a reduced cost per port. For E1 applications, the channelized E1/G.703 interface allows direct connectivity to 120-ohm G.703 lines.