Internetwork execs talk up convergence

New York

High-level representatives from Cabletron, Cisco, 3Com and Nortel Networks recently used the same Wall Street platform to spell out their companies' strategies for success in the age of IP convergence.

Speaking at brokerage firm Warburg Dillon Read's investor conference, Cabletron officials said the company plans to emphasize its expertise in Layer 4 network services to exploit voice-over-IP opportunities among incumbent and competitive local exchange carriers.

Cabletron Chief Technology Officer Michael Skubisz says service providers represent one of four strategic markets for the company. Cabletron's primary Layer 4 offering is the SmartSwitch Router, a wire-speed gigabit switching device that can forward packets based on TCP and User Datagram Protocol (UDP) port - transport layer, or Layer 4 - information.

Cabletron is also looking to offer cable modem and broadband wireless access gear to corporate customers and service providers for "last-mile" Internet access requirements, Skubisz says. The company will start delivering the products in about a year by taking advantage of internal development and making acquisitions, he says.

Cisco is also putting a lot of emphasis on the service provider market. Its "IP conversion" strategy, as Cisco officials refer to it, involves introducing service providers to new opportunities that come from combining existing circuit-switched and "New World" packet-switched services.

"We're talking about how to get into the networked commerce business," says Don Listwin, executive vice president at Cisco.

Cisco's strategy involves deconstructing traditional, proprietary Class 4 and 5 central office and point-of-presence environments into an open, distributed IP data infrastructure that enables automated service provisioning, Listwin says.

3Com has pinpointed seven new business opportunities brought about by convergence, says 3Com Chairman and CEO Eric Benhamou. One of these is LAN telephony, in which PBX-like call processing is brought to enterprise data networks.

"3Com is going to be in the PBX business," Benhamou says. The company will use its partnership with voice telephony giant Siemens to bring PBX functionality to 3Com LAN switches and to roll out IP telephones, Benhamou says.

Nortel is already well-entrenched in the PBX world, but the company also derives 18% of its revenue from IP, thanks in large part to its Bay Networks acquisition, says Chairman and CEO John Roth.

In the WAN market, Roth says Nortel is looking to break the last-mile bottleneck. The company will use wireless, digital subscriber line and cable modem technologies to go after the opportunity. He calls mobile data the "next big wave" in wireless technology.