Edgy stuff

On the heels of unveiling its new multi-service edge router, Nortel made another significant move at the edge with an upgrade of its six-year-old Shasta IP services switch. The Services Edge Router 5500 more than doubles the performance and density of the Shasta Broadband Services Node 5000. It supports twice as many IP VPNs – 4,096 – than the 5000, Nortel says, and more than twice as many subscribers: 72,000 vs. 32,000. The quarter-rack chassis of the 5500 features 14 slots for control and management, switch fabric, subscriber service cards and interface modules. The switching capacity of the 5500 can be either 622M bit/sec or 1.2G bit/sec full duplex. Like its predecessor, the 5500 is optimized for broadband aggregation, IP VPNs and personalized IP services for businesses and residences. http://www.nwfusion.com/news/financial/nortel.html

On the heels of unveiling its new multi-service edge router, Nortel made another significant move at the edge with an upgrade of its six-year-old Shasta IP services switch. The Services Edge Router 5500 more than doubles the performance and density of the Shasta Broadband Services Node 5000. It supports twice as many IP VPNs – 4,096 – than the 5000, Nortel says, and more than twice as many subscribers: 72,000 vs. 32,000. The quarter-rack chassis of the 5500 features 14 slots for control and management, switch fabric, subscriber service cards and interface modules. The switching capacity of the 5500 can be either 622M bit/sec or 1.2G bit/sec full duplex. Like its predecessor, the 5500 is optimized for broadband aggregation, IP VPNs and personalized IP services for businesses and residences.

https://www.nwfusion.com/news/financial/nortel.html

Another telecom player is also targeting the edge…but the enterprise edge. Juniper began its assault on Cisco’s hallowed turf by unveiling the J-Series line of access routers. The J-Series consists of three models, all featuring two Fast Ethernet ports. The 2300 is an 8M bit/sec device with two WAN ports. The 4300 is a 16M bit/sec router with six WAN ports; and the 6300 is a 90M bit/sec device also with six WAN ports. But contrary to previous reports, the J-Series will not initially feature any integrated security technology from Juniper’s recent acquisition of NetScreen – VPN, firewall and intrusion-detection capabilities have been developed by Juniper. The J-Series routers are part of Juniper’s plan to establish a beachhead in the enterprise to fill out its Infranet Initiative, a strategy to coalesce the industry around standards for making the Internet a business-viable network. Some believe Juniper will strengthen its enterprise foothold by acquiring an Ethernet LAN switch vendor, perhaps Extreme Networks.

https://www.nwfusion.com/news/2004/0608pepsi.html

SBC and Wayport are turning up 6,000 Wi-Fi hot spots in McDonald’s restaurant locations nationwide by the end of next summer. SBC FreedomLink customers will have unlimited access to Wayport-deployed Wi-Fi hot spots in the restaurants. The deployment significantly increases SBC’s Wi-Fi footprint. Earlier this year, SBC announced plans to turn up 1,500 Wi-Fi hot spots in The UPS Store and Mail Boxes Etc. locations by year-end. Both buildouts are part of the RBOC’s aggressive plans to deploy 20,000 hot spots in 6,000 venues over three years via a roaming arrangement with Wayport. The McDonald’s project also calls for SBC to provide business DSL Internet access to Wayport for backhaul transport at McDonald’s Wi-Fi restaurants in SBC’s 13-state region.

https://www.nwfusion.com/edge/news/2004/0608sbc.html