With the debut of its 100 Gigabit Ethernet edge routing interface, Alcatel-Lucent believes it can help alleviate the pain service providers are facing at the network edge as consumers and businesses users consume greater amounts of bandwidth from high-speed data and video applications. The increasing consumption from consumer online video use and business class VPNs will require service providers to rethink the way they provision bandwidth at the network edge.
In response Alcatel-Lucent is enhancing its flagship 7750 Service Router series with a new 100 Gigabit service interface for its 7750 Service Router (SR) and 7450 Ethernet Service Switch (ESS). And for service providers that aren't ready to make the 100 Gbps jump, but need to expand speed beyond 10 Gbps, Alcatel-Lucent also introduced a new 10-port 10 Gigabit Ethernet line cards for the 7750 SR and 7450 ESS.
Interest in 100 Gbps networking continues to ramp. On the vendor competition front, this product debut comes a few weeks after Juniper announced a 100 Gbps router interface for its core routing platforms. While not revealing any specific plans on deploying the new interface in its own network, existing Alcatel-Lucent 7750 router customer Telus said it sees the 100 Gbps Ethernet as a future-proofing technology. In addition to early adopters in the Research and Education segment (Internet2) and the financial community (NYSE/Euronext), service providers such as Verizon Business are either evaluating or deploying 100 Gbps-based networks. Still, for all the potential 100 Gbps networking has, the adoption of this technology will be an ongoing evolutionary process.
For more:
- here's the official release
- Light Reading has this report