The LAN equipment market continues to draw newcomers, in spite of its troubles.
Last month, we welcomed Dell into the market. Now, NEC is introducing Ethernet switches aimed at the enterprise backbone. Granted, these switches have been offered in Asia for some time, but this marks NEC's entrance into the U.S. market.
As noted before, the LAN switch market is shrinking worldwide, according to the Dell'Oro Group:
www.nwfusion.com/newsletters/lans/2001/01038432.html
NEC's BlueFire switches implement IPv6 in hardware. The company says it had developed the support because IP addresses are scarce in Japan, and IPv6 increases the available address space.
The BlueFire 700 series of Layer 3 switches has switch fabrics ranging from 4G bit/sec to 96G bit/sec. The number of 10/100M bit/sec Ethernet ports ranges from 16 to 384. Mainly the switches would compete against other high-end chassis-based switches.
The BlueFire IX5010 MultiService IP Switch Router is aimed more at service providers. It integrates Gigabit Ethernet with WAN technologies, like ATM, frame relay and Packet over SONET.
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In addition to writing this newsletter, Jeff Caruso edits Network World's e-mail newsletters from his office on New York's Long Island. If you would like to make suggestions about newsletter format or content, or even just express your opinion on today's topic, you can reach Jeff at jcaruso@nww.com.
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Network World, 10/15/01
