Cisco CRS-3: Is That It?

Announcement doesn't live up to "forever change the Internet" hype

In this case, the inaccurate speculation would have better fit the buildup. Where's the end-to-end access, edge and core architecture, endorsed by the leading service providers, to fulfill the National Broadband Plan? Where's even the edge component of that with the newly-shipping 160G Ethernet interface for the ASR 9000?

Where's the stuff that will "forever change the Internet and its impact on consumers, businesses and governments"?

That's it? The CRS-3? We already knew about that. What else ya got?

That's it. The CRS-3. Something that Juniper says it will leapfrog in about a year. Something that will only "change the Internet" for 12 months before something comes along to "change the Internet" again. Something that, if it really did change things for us on the Internet, would we notice? And wouldn't it cost us more?

Forgive us for being a bit deflated and underwhelmed by the revelation that the Internet-changing announcement from Cisco is a core router expected for over a month. We have no doubt it will be successful for Cisco - and maybe even you and me over the long run.

But, really now: change the Internet? Forever? We expected a bigger, broader, Broadway sweep with this one - broadband even. At 100Mbps. To 100 million. In 50 states. We Wanted To Be Googled.

Hey, Cisco never promised anything like that. It only promised to "forever change" things.

Well, it forever changed the way we'll set expectations for a Cisco announcement. This exercise was another example of overzealous marketing allowing otherwise skeptical imaginations to run wild with the potential of a "forever change" pitch from a credible company.

In this case, the off-target speculation won. The speculation was sexy enough to live up to the hype. The CRS-3 did not. Consider this dog wagged.

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• Cisco
• Cisco CRS-1 Core Router
• Internet
• router