INTERCONNECTS

Cisco Systems announced today that the industry-leading Carrier Routing System (CRS-1), the core platform for the Cisco Internet Protocol Next-Generation Network (IP NGN) architecture, has been adopted by more than 50 providers in the first two years since its introduction. In June 2005, Cisco marked the first anniversary of the platform's availability by announcing that 13 providers had adopted it. Today's announcement reflects 300 percent annual growth in the CRS-1 customer base, driven by providers' increased network, service and application convergence to facilitate delivery of combined data, voice and video (triple-play) services. "The service provider migration toward all-IP networks has clearly started in earnest. The variety of rich media services being delivered and the new ones yet to come will drive traffic growth even higher, placing even greater demand for the network cores to be scalable, highly available and flexible," said Jeff Ogle, Principal Analyst, Carrier Infrastructure, Current Analysis. "Cisco's carrier-class CRS-1 customer win momentum is an indication that it is meeting those needs for an increasing number of providers." Publicly announced CRS-1 customers include BT, Cable & Wireless, Comcast, China Telecom (ChinaNet), China Education and Research Network (CERNET), the National Institute of Informatics' SuperSINET research network in Japan, National LambdaRail, MTS Allstream, Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center(PSC), SaskTel, Softbank Yahoo! BB, Swisscom, Shanghai Telecom and Telstra. The Cisco CRS-1 is the first carrier-class routing system designed to seamlessly scale in-service up to 92 terabits per second, offering service providers investment protection and the ability to manage multiservice delivery including video, projected to drive rapid growth of IP traffic. The Cisco CRS-1 enables the convergence of entertainment and business services onto a single network with a unique service-separation architecture that separates traffic and network operations on a per-service or per-customer basis within the system. The Cisco CRS-1 features continuous system operation, service flexibility and scalability. Cisco CRS-1 milestones: -- May 2004 - Cisco announces CRS-1 availability -- December 2004 - Cisco announces availability of 8-slot CRS-1 -- July 2005 - Cisco CRS-1 sets Guinness world record with the world's highest capacity Internet router -- October 2005 - Cisco CRS-1 receives InfoVision Award in the "Network Core Innovation and Advances" category from the International Engineering Consortium -- December 2005 - Cisco CRS-1 delivers industry-leading IP over dense wavelength-division multiplexing (IPoDWDM) optical integration for IP NGN -- Jan 2006 - Shanghai Telecom becomes first provider to use multichassis CRS-1 -- February 2006 - CRS-1 supporting 40Gbps OC-768c service is deployed in production network (Yahoo! BB, Japan) "Growth of CRS-1 sales is driven by global providers' migration towards IP Next Generation Networks and the many benefits they offer both the providers themselves and their business and residential customers," said Kelly Ahuja, vice president and general manager of the Core Routing Business Unit at Cisco. "The CRS-1 is an increasingly clear choice for providers expanding or developing new IP/MPLS infrastructures, and we are extremely pleased with its adoption rate, which outpaces that of any other core router on the market today." For more information about the Cisco Carrier Routing System (CRS-1) please visit the Cisco Website at its Web site..