LAS VEGAS - Several vendors at NetWorld+Interop last week took aim at the enterprise WAN access market with gear that promises performance equal to or better than market-leader Cisco's - but at lower prices.

Foundry Networks launched its line of AccessIron products for small and midsize remote offices, while Adtran announced its NetVanta 5000-series WAN gear for larger sites. Also, Kentrox released a router for corporations interested in connecting to broadband or metropolitan Ethernet services. These vendors say their routers can help companies securely connect offices to an enterprise WAN for less money.

Foundry's AccessIron 1200 and 3200 routers have integrated VPN support for up to 1,000 encrypted tunnels and stateful firewall features that could be used to link a small or large site to a WAN link or ISP connection. Foundry says its AccessIron delivers features equal to those available with Cisco's 1700, 2600 and 3700 series routers, but costs about 30% less.

The AccessIron 1200 supports up to 16 fractional T-1 connections and includes an integrated DSU/CSU. The AccessIron 3200 supports two channelized or clear-channel T-3 connections. The routers are scheduled to be available in July and priced starting at $2,600.

Adtran's NetVanta 5305 router supports two DS3 links, and includes stateful inspection firewall and IPSec VPN support for up to 2,000 VPN tunnels. The box supports VoIP line trunking, as well as VLAN trunking for connecting VLANs across corporate WAN.

The basic NetVanta 5305 chassis starts at $7,000, and costs up to $10,000 with a T-3 connection and VPN support. Adtran says its NetVanta 5305 offers the same performance as similarly configured routers from Cisco at about half the cost.

While Cisco's 1700, 2600 and 3700 series routers have long dominated the enterprise access-router market, several new competitors have jumped into the market over the last year. 3Com last fall introduced its Router 5000 series of router/VPN/firewall gear, and Enterasys launched its XSR series of integrated router/security boxes earlier in 2003.