Expanding The Network Edge

Resurgent corporate and consumer demand for broadband is re-stirring service provider appetites for new edge router technologies. After years of stagnation, worldwide revenue for service provider routers and switches totaled $1.37 billion in the first quarter of 2004, down 1 percent from the previous quarter -- but up 25 percent year-over-year -- according to Infonetics Research. More importantly, analysts are projecting worldwide revenues in the router and switch market to reach $8.5 billion in 2007.

In the context of this heady environment, we are witnessing a renaissance of innovation in the edge router space, as manufacturers roll out a diverse set of boxes tailored to the specific needs of carriers large, small, and in-between.

Small Is Beautiful, Too

One of the hot markets actively courted by the edge router manufacturers is the small- to medium-sized service provider community. If vendors deliver as promised, carriers in this relatively young market (born in the wake of the Telecom Act of 1996) will no longer have to stagger under the weight of technology designed to support the traffic dynamics of telecom behemoths, or tinker fruitlessly with underpowered boxes designed for the enterprise market. Technology developers on both sides of the equation insist that they have come up with Goldilocks solutions "just right" for this carrier market.

This week, for instance, Laurel Networks crammed the functionality of its ST200 broadband remote-access server (B-RAS) into a smaller chassis called the ST50, emphasizing DSL provisioning and "triple-play" services.Meanwhile, Riverstone Networks leveraged its traditional base in Ethernet services to offer the 15008 edge router, a 10-Gbit Ethernet system based on an Internet Protocol/multiprotocol label-switching (MPLS) control plane. Executives expect the new 10-gigabit Ethernet router to complement the company's flagship RS product line with a high-end solution that lets service providers converge their various business, residential edge, and metro core services onto a single Ethernet infrastructure.

Riverstone is so sanguine about its prospects in the smaller-carrier market that it partially divested itself of its enterprise business. In a $28 million licensing deal, the company this week sold its enterprise-class technology to HP's ProCurve networking division. (Riverstone, however, retains ownership of the operating system software.)

Gunning for the Big Boys

Still going after the high end of the market, Nortel Networks this week renamed its Shasta family of offerings. The product set now falls under the less catchy (but more descriptive) Services Edge Router 5500 brand.

The Services Edge Router 5500, Nortel said, will double the performance and scalability of the Shasta product line, scaling to 64,000 subscribers per platform while providing quality of service guarantees on a per-user basis. The new routers also promise to provide future investment protection though support of the DSL Forum's emerging TR-059 specification, a framework for delivering tiered IP levels of service over a DSL infrastructure.This, Nortel said, will allow carriers to support bandwidth on demand for interactive voice, video, entertainment and gaming applications.

The happy R&D days, it would seem, are here again.

New Edge Architectures Target Smaller Carriers

Edge routers that emphasize the streamlined services of smaller carriers will debut this month at Supercomm 2004 in Chicago.

IBM Customizes Chip For Cisco
IBM is making the chip that powers Cisco Systems' new carrier-grade router for directing data, voice, and video across the Internet.

Nortel Enters Edge Router Sector
Nortel is ready to battle Cisco, Alcatel, Juniper and Laurel on the metro edge with the release Monday of a multiprotocol label switching (MPLS) edge router that provides switching capabilities.DEEP BACKGROUND

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