EDGE ROUTER SECTOR CROWDS AS VENDORS RACE TO ETHERNET

Alcatel and Laurel Networks will announce new edge routers this week, each of which are aimed at carriers trying to consolidate their networks as they move into Ethernet services. Both, however, will join a field that over the past month has been become populated with almost a half dozen other products designed to pursue the same goal.

Laurel's ST50 service edge router, a smaller version of its ST200 router, merges routing, Layer 2 switching, subscriber management and service management while adding up to 16 mini Physical Interface (PHY) cards in each unit. Additionally, the company will announce a new version of its software that will operate on both routers.

“The ST50 allows us to take all the things we've been doing with the ST200 and put it into a smaller form factor,” said Steve Vogelsang, co-founder and vice president of marketing for Laurel.

The objective, according to Vogelsang, is to target smaller carriers and more remote locations than the ST200. However, the company is likely to find plenty of competition, including Alcatel, which will announce two new products for its Metro Ethernet portfolio this week. Axiom, Riverstone and Nortel announced similar products targeting the edge in the last few weeks. Also in the fray is Fujitsu, which this week will announce a consortium of four vendors aimed at a similar market.

Alcatel's 7450 Ethernet Service Switch and the 1662 Packet Ring Switch both combine Ethernet with MPLS and appear to compete directly with Riverstone's newest offering, the 15008 Ethernet Edge Router, which was announced last week.

“[The 7450] combines an MPLS control plane with the bandwidth and the economics of Ethernet,” said Lindsay Newell, director of product marketing for Alcatel's IP unit. “We would argue that it is the first one that lets service providers deliver Ethernet services without compromise.”

Among the services Alcatel is talking up with the 7450 and 1662 are Ethernet virtual private network and aggregation of video traffic, providing MPLS-like quality of service.

“We have the ability to deliver very granular QOS based on a per-service basis,” Newell said.

Meanwhile, Riverstone is touting its QOS, which is combined with tunneling support and line-rate (10 Gb/s) IPv4 and IPv6 forwarding in the 15008. Though it won't be commercially available until the third quarter, the router, designed to complement the company's RS product line, is currently in tests with Germany's T-Systems.

Like other vendors, Riverstone is playing up its ability to allow carriers to make a profitable move into Ethernet services.

“If you go to a carrier and propose a solution that requires investment, that investment must show growth in revenue,” said Sathya Narayanaswamy, director of marketing for Riverstone. “Connections available today are inherently low speed. With an Ethernet service approach, you can connect all of your locations at high speed, get any-to-any connections and centralize the IT function. There are people paying more for Ethernet than frame relay because of the capability it provides.”

The pitch is familiar and logical. Studies show that carriers are spending more on the capital expense of providing Ethernet than they are bringing in, and that doesn't factor in operational expense (see figures).

“They're all attacking it in different ways,” said Joe McGarvey, senior analyst of carrier infrastructure for Current Analysis. Part of the reason is because carriers have yet to coalesce around one method of making the transition, he said.

“Take 10 different service providers and you'll have four or five different scenarios for consolidating their network or migrating from ATM to MPLS,” McGarvey said. “All of these vendors have a potential market, and there's not going to be one idea for consolidating around an MPLS core.”