Cisco Bows Next-Generation Router

Triples speed of existing platform to handle video growth

By Glen Dickson -- Broadcasting & Cable, 3/10/2010 11:08:24 AM

Cisco has introduced a new Internet data router that triples the speed of its predecessor, the widely deployed Cisco CRS-1 Carrier Routing System, as the company addresses customer demand for higher capacity to handle the explosion in Internet traffic.

Cisco's new CRS-3 platform, which will ship later this year at a starting price of $90,000, offers a throughput of up to 322 Terabits per second. According to Cisco, that is fast enough to enable every man, woman and child in China to simultaneously make a video call or for every motion picture ever created to be streamed in less than four minutes.

Cisco, which is one of several IP communications vendors to be featured in the "Destination Broadband" exhibit at the NAB show next month, has for year emphasized the importance of video in transforming Internet communications and driving global broadband traffic. At the CES show in January, Cisco Chairman and CEO John Chambers highlighted a range of Internet video applications, from streaming user-generated video from Cisco's Flip camera to high-definition videoconferencing using Cisco's "Telepresence" technology.

In announcing the CRS-3 Mar. 9 on a live video Webcast, Chambers again cited new video applications, such as IPTV and 3D, as a big driver of Internet growth going forward and as the impetus to create such a robust routing platform like the CRS-3. The company has invested $1.6 billion to date in its CRS product line, and almost 5,000 CRS-1 units have been deployed.

"Video is not just the killer app, it enables new business models," said Chambers. He predicted that within a few years, consumers will use up to 15 terabytes of data per month, the equivalent of 3750 DVDs.

Telco AT&T has already tested the CRS-3 in a field trial of 100-Gigabit backbone network technology, which took place in AT&T's live network between New Orleans and Miami. 

While AT&T was the first to move to 40-gigabit-per-second backbones, said AT&T Labs President and CEO Keith Cambron, it expects it will soon have to widely deploy 100-gig links to keep pace with network demand. Overall network traffic is growing 40 to 50% annually, said Cambron, and video is growing at a spectacular 80%.

Obviously, that video growth is music to Chambers' ears.

"I love anything that loads networks," he said.