SCIENCE

SAN JOSE, CA -- Cisco Systems, Inc. (Nasdaq:CSCO), a leader in networking for the Internet, today announced that the latest Gigabit Router test by Miercom, a market-leading product test center, demonstrated that the Cisco 12410 Internet Router is the leading product for the service provider market in delivering high-priority, time-sensitive traffic such as voice, video and data services. Based on highest performance and lowest latency and jitter (inter-arrival delay) scores when compared to competitive offerings, the Cisco 12410 Internet Router provided: -- Far less latency (ranging from 3 - 5 milliseconds vs. competitors at 82 milliseconds) and jitter; -- Reached BGP learning rate in 60 seconds where competitive offerings took 7 minutes; -- Experienced no packet loss when transmitting 40 byte packets compared to a 30 percent loss by a competitive product. These results are critical factors for service providers' converged networks to be able to deliver the highest level of Quality of Service. The results and background on the test can be found on the Miercom website www.mier.com and the Cisco website http://newsroom.cisco.com/dlls/Cisco12400JuniperM160PerfVal.pdf. "The cumulative effect of high latency on network traffic, especially voice and video traffic, results in unintelligible output and should be considered a critical factor when assessing routers for use in converged networks," states the Miercom report. "Performance testing demonstrated that the Cisco 12410 Internet Router prioritized traffic with neither packet loss nor sequence errors. It showed tighter jitter control even during congestion," said Rob Smithers, president of Miercom. "We were impressed with the 12410 results and the market needs to take notice that it is now indeed possible to get high performance and low latency in one box without sacrificing service delivery." Service delivery is a key differentiator for carriers when looking to expand their business base, reduce operational costs and increase revenue. Miercom test results indicated that the Cisco 12410 Internet Router outperformed Juniper Networks M160 on real-time traffic in all five tests using the following criteria: Class of Service Analysis, Packet Reordering, Jitter, Latency, and Performance Metrics. "Service providers today need to increase profitability by transitioning to platforms that can deliver voice, data and video services easily, quickly and reliably," said Deb Mielke, founder of Treillage Network Strategies, Inc. "Cisco's next generation Internet Router family provides a unique set of functions that guarantee the delivery of superior real-time IP services -- an infrastructure that will enable service providers to maximize the service-enabled Internet. Based on the Miercom tests results, Cisco has a superior product in the industry." "Cisco's 12400 Internet Routers are perfect for Cogent as we not only get the benefit of 10Gbps when we need it, we gain the ability to provide a broader breadth of IP services to our customers, like the popular voice over IP," said Mark Schleifer, vice president of IP engineering, Cogent Communications. "Cogent appreciates the overall value in getting more box for the money, with more horsepower and the ability to scale -- that's true investment protection." For additional information visit www.cisco.com