Axiowave touts debut router as key to turning IP profits

Axiowave Networks, a 4-year-old, privately held maker of core routers, last week unveiled its first product.

The XCR128 is designed to bring TDM-grade service levels to IP networking and service convergence. The product is intended to address gaps in the IP service business model that keep service providers from making money from IP, according to Axiowave.

Axiowave is entering an increasingly crowded field. Cisco and Juniper dominate the core router market with more than 90% share between them. Avici Systems is a distant third with less than 5% share. Alcatel and a number of other start-ups, including Caspian and Procket Networks, account for the remainder.

Axiowave, however, believes its business proposition - ATM-like service-level agreements (SLA) for IP - will set it apart. Even though service providers have experienced traffic increases of 50% to 100% per year, prices have declined up to 27% during the same time because of a lack of service differentiation and increased competition, Axiowave says.

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Axiowave Networks, a 4-year-old, privately held maker of core routers, last week unveiled its first product.

The XCR128 is designed to bring TDM-grade service levels to IP networking and service convergence. The product is intended to address gaps in the IP service business model that keep service providers from making money from IP, according to Axiowave.

Axiowave is entering an increasingly crowded field. Cisco and Juniper dominate the core router market with more than 90% share between them. Avici Systems is a distant third with less than 5% share. Alcatel and a number of other start-ups, including Caspian and Procket Networks, account for the remainder.

Axiowave, however, believes its business proposition - ATM-like service-level agreements (SLA) for IP - will set it apart. Even though service providers have experienced traffic increases of 50% to 100% per year, prices have declined up to 27% during the same time because of a lack of service differentiation and increased competition, Axiowave says.

In addition, small amounts of premium services such as VoIP and interactive/broadcast video mixed with IP best-effort traffic continue to force service providers to unnecessarily build out and over-engineer their networks, the company says.

The XCR128 is intended to reverse this imbalance. The router is designed to deliver more than 90% sustained wavelength utilization, and almost all the traffic can be premium services on the same egress link as oversubscribed data traffic, Axiowave says.

The result, according to Axiowave, is the ability for service providers to offer and guarantee ATM-grade SLA for IP at premium prices.

The main switching shelf for the XCR128 is a half-rack chassis with 20 slots for line cards, system controller and bandwidth management processors. System controller and bandwidth management processors can be deployed in a 1-to-1 redundant configuration.

Five more slots are reserved for switch fabric cards in a 4-to-1 redundant configuration. 

Catch the Axiowave Features of the newest big router include: • 1.2 T-byte switching capacity. • 32 slots for line cards. • Full-rack footprint. • TDM-grade IP SLAs.

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An optional I/O shelf features 12 slots for line cards and two slots for 1-to-1 redundant fabric cards. The system supports 32 OC-192c and 10G Ethernet, 128 OC-48c, 320 Gigabit Ethernet and 256 OC-12c interfaces.

The XCR128 system is deployed at PowerNet Global (PNG), a wholesale and retail carrier in Cincinnati. PNG, which has points of presence nationwide, offers voice, Internet access, IP transit and peering and other data services to businesses, residences and service providers.

PNG replaced about 10 routers from its incumbent supplier with an equal number of Axiowave XCR128s to support toll-quality VoIP, ATM- and frame-relay-grade IP VPNs, and ATM-grade wholesale IP peering and transit services while simultaneously supporting best effort traffic over one network.

"We needed a differentiator for ourselves," says PNG CEO Bernie Stevens. "The typical IP market is commodity and best effort. [With the XCR128] we could give SLAs on IP that were unheard of."