The ESCON multiplexing line card is a 10-port card for ESCON (Enterprise Systems Connection) traffic. The ESCON card converts the 10 client signals from optical to electrical and then aggregates them into a single 2.5-Gbps signal. This aggregated signal is sent through the backplane and the active switch fabric to either a 10-Gbps ITU trunk card or a 10-GE uplink card. The cross connection between the two cards is configured using the CLI (command-line interface). The ESCON multiplexing line card has a redundant backplane connection.