Nexabit provides a peek into terabit switch/routers

Westborough, Mass.

High-speed router start-up Nexabit Networks, Inc. last week offered a glimpse of the terabit switch/router the company hopes to ship this fall.

The company is building a router that can support 6.4 terabit/sec of switching capacity. This bandwidth will help scale the Internet and enable users to implement large private intranets, real-time voice over IP and other new applications, Nexabit claimed.

The company does not have an official name for its new box but refers to it as the multiterabit switch/router. The initial system will support up to 16 10G bit/sec OC-192 links or 64 2.5G bit/sec OC-48s over Synchronous Optical Network (SONET) and wavelength division multiplexing, said Gene Wahlberg, Nexabit senior vice president of sales and marketing. A single chassis - which holds 16 one-port OC-192 and four-port OC-48 line cards - can scale up to 6.4 terabit/sec. This throughput is achieved through the use of four 1.6G terabit/sec modules, Wahlberg said. Separate CPU boards handle route processing and then download route tables onto each line card. The design is intended to increase throughput.

Packet delay through the switch fabric is no more than 3 microsec, he said.

For quality of service, the Nexabit switch/router supports eight priority queues per interface for high-performance multicasting and constant bit rate- type service for IP traffic, Wahlberg said.

The switch/router also permits simultaneous switching of frames and cells, he said. Analysts said products such as Nexabit's will appeal to Internet service providers looking to offer IP-based multiservice applications to users and those who are already approaching the performance limits of Cisco Systems, Inc.'s 12000 Gigabit Switch Router and Ascend Communications Corp.'s GRF 1600.

"Not only is it applicable to the new IP-based phone companies, like Qwest and Level 3 Communications, but at some point I think you'll see the MCIs, Sprints and AT&Ts of the world interested in these products," said David Passmore, president of the NetReference, Inc. consultancy, in Sterling, Va. "The speed [they] need is OC-48 to OC-192."

Nexabit will have lots of company in this market, including fellow start-ups Argon Networks, Inc., Avici Systems, Inc., Juniper Networks, Inc. and Pluris, Inc. (NW, Jan. 19, page 20).

Wahlberg did not disclose pricing for the multiterabit switch/router.

Nexabit: (508) 898-9900