Taking on Cisco, Alcatel-Lucent to enter Internet core router market

Telecom Lead Asia: Alcatel-Lucent is set to enter the
Internet core router market. One of its main rivals in the market will be Cisco.

 

The estimated size of the Internet core router market is
$4 billion.

 

Alcatel-Lucent said its new Internet core router products
will deliver a five-fold improvement in capacity and performance as well as
energy savings of 66 percent compared with today’s IP core routers.

 

The combined global energy consumption of core routers
has been estimated by Bell Labs to exceed 1.8 Terawatts by 2016, the equivalent
of 128,000 homes.

 

Cisco leads in core router market

 

Recently, Synergy Research Group said the second quarter
of 2011 saw continued service provider investment in Edge and Core IP networks,
driving up sales 9.3 percent sequentially to $2.96 billion. Routers and
Switches continue to be the cornerstone of IP network investments, providing
the foundation to support the accelerating growth of Mobile Internet, Video,
Cloud, Collaboration and Data Center, according to Synergy Research Group.

 

“Based on the second quarter results, it can be said
that discussions of Cisco’s market share struggles in this arena have been
highly exaggerated. Cisco certainly has regained its leadership momentum during
this quarter,” said Jeremy Duke, founder and principal analyst, Synergy Research
Group.

 

Cisco showed the strongest momentum in the Core Router
market where they gained market share quarter-over-quarter and year-over-year
as well as over a four-quarter rolling average. North America, which represents
the largest portion of the Core Router market, saw the biggest share movements
with Cisco gaining 4.94 market share points versus Juniper losing 6.22 market
share points.

 

“The new digital economy demands constant and rapid
evolution of the networks that manage and deliver data traffic, connecting the
hand of consumers with their content and applications in the cloud. Our market
entry is the data equivalent of revolutionizing telephone exchanges. It will
enable our customers to optimize the delivery of Internet video, gaming, photo
sharing and data-hungry business applications,” said Ben Verwaayen, chief
executive of Alcatel-Lucent.

 

Verwaayen said the new technologies had been pioneered by
the company’s IP division, which has already secured more than 25 percent of
the market for service provider edge routers – the systems that network
operators deploy to manage broadband connections and service quality for
residential and business users.

 

“For over a decade we have invested in advanced
silicon and software technology, most recently demonstrated by our breakthrough
network processor chipset, FP3, announced in June 2011. Now we are applying
this technology to the largest nodes in the Internet, core routers,” said
Basil Alwan, president of the company’s Internet Protocol division.

 

“Our 7950 XRS core router systems sit at the massive
intersections of the Internet, where billions of individual messages are
directed to the correct destinations every second. Our technology will provide
more capacity and more flexible traffic management with reduced energy
consumption, helping to ensure better performance from global broadband
networks,” Alwan added.

 

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