Cisco reminds us that the heart and soul of your business is still the humble router. In this case, perhaps not so humble router.
On Tuesday, the company announced the SRC-3, its Internet router for next generation service providers the world’s largest Internet. Cisco may have publicized the announcement just a little. After a two-week countdown to an announcement stating that “changing the Internet forever,” the company issued what appears to be an upgrade of its existing “core” called the CRS-1 router.
While the hype machine may have failed to deliver something truly revolutionary, Cisco’s announcement is still significant. The new router offers 12 times the traffic capacity of previous generation routers offer. It is three times faster than the previous CRS-1, which was introduced in 2004. And that can handle 322 terabits per second of traffic, or simultaneous video calls to each person in China, the company said.
The new router, which starts at $ 90,000, will be sold to major Internet service providers worldwide. These ISPs are not run-of-the-mill sale of 10 Mbps of broadband services to consumers. These companies, like AT & T, Verizon Communications, Level3, and Sprint, are the providers of Internet services and transportation are added most of the Internet traffic of the nation through what are known as “the backbone Internet. ”
When new Cisco routers are installed, the average bandwidth consumption probably will not notice anything new. But over time, will see the benefits of developed infrastructure. The Cisco CRS-3 will allow these service providers of Internet backbone network to increase capacity so that new applications, especially video-based applications such as HDTV, video and television in 3D, can be offered to mass market.
Cisco, John Chambers, CEO said the new router will serve as the foundation of the next generation Internet will see a large growth due to the source.
“Video is the killer app,” he said. “Video Internet brings to life and most of the devices that come in the network will evolve rapidly in video.”
Chambers said, looking at the devices and applications that were at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in January and the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona in February are a good indicator of things to come in the future. And he said that all these food products on the Internet, the network is loaded with more traffic.
“Whether or video game, tablets or carry ESPN sports television, 3D video is,” he said. Salas added that video traffic, along with other data-intensive applications for things such as health care, require more bandwidth than anyone could have imagined not long ago.
In fact, the new router will play an important role in allowing all sorts of new applications and services to be launched. And as the networks of broadband access faster, more capacity will be needed in the Internet backbone to accommodate the traffic. Many broadband providers are already offering 50 Mbps and 100 Mbps broadband services to consumers. Google also recently announced plans to build networks of ultra high-speed broadband to try new services and applications using 1Gigabit per second speeds. And if history has taught the industry anything, is that when more bandwidth becomes available, applications quickly connects to use. Once consumers begin to use high-capacity applications that require these speeds, infrastructure equipment deep in the Internet backbone will have to be in place to support the flow of traffic.
While the scale and speed of the new CRS-3 is awesome and definitely needs the Internet to a new level of capability, what really “forever change the Internet?” Cisco billed as the ad.
Cisco’s announcement is more of an incremental update of the company’s existing products, the CRS-1. Cisco IP Routing is the bread and butter. No wonder the company has developed a new big router to meet the growing demand for Internet traffic.
Zeus Kerravala, senior vice president of market research firm Yankee Group, agreed. But he said the announcement is still very important for the growth of the Internet and future innovation of new applications.
“There is no way that a routing announcement could live up to the hype that Cisco created,” he said. “But if you look down the road, when consumers want to watch multiple channels of high definition video and 3D programming, and mobile applications such as appeared in 4G wireless networks, companies like Cisco and rival Juniper Networks need to push the routing in terms of engineering. ”
As for consumer strategy at Cisco, who was rumored about this announcement, we are still waiting for a murderer set-top box or some other truly revolutionary product that will change the Internet as we know.
This article was first published as a blog post on CNET News.