Delivery D-Day

A few start-ups promising terabit switch routers have made a big noise during the last year, but the results of their development efforts have yet to be seen.

That should change very soon. All the start-ups, including Avici Systems, Argon Networks, Juniper Networks, Netcore and Nexabit Networks, set their time frames for trial delivery of terabit switch routers for late third quarter of this year.

Some have offered glimpses of what they've been working on. Netcore was at Networld+Interop in May and the only one in the group with a booth at Supercomm '98. The company exhibited a cabinet for its Everest device, along with the circuit boards that run it.

In July, Juniper announced that the software element of its forthcoming product is complete, and the company has performed some interoperability tests with existing networks using a Pentium PC platform. The PC doesn't perform at nearly the level that Juniper's switch fabric will, but the tests at least demonstrate that Juniper's software will work in existing Cisco Systems-dominated networks.

Despite an apparent lead because of its presence at Supercomm, Netcore isn't much ahead of the rest of the crowd, if at all.

The company is just about to begin lab trials with its Everest switch, said John Shaw, Netcore's marketing director. The company won't disclose which companies are conducting the trials, but Shaw said at least three separate trials will be initiated between now and the end of the year. Netcore had hoped to be at this stage a few weeks earlier, but Shaw said he isn't concerned.

"It's just a complex thing," he said. "One of the interesting challenges with new equipment is figuring out how to test it."

Another consideration is how to bring a new product to market. Juniper's strategy in forging ahead with its software-despite the fact that its hardware component is still in the works-isn't a red flag that development is in trouble, said Marketing Director Joe Furgerson. Juniper will deliver a finished product by the end of the year, he said, and the company's two-pronged development emphasizing software will allow it to better compete against Internet protocol giant Cisco.

"Software is a constantly moving target," he said. "The software base must incorporate the large amount of learning that's going on in the Internet. The only way we can see to succeed is to get the software qualified up front."

Avici will launch lab trials in late September, with field trials by the first quarter of 1999, based on lab results. The first trials will make sure that the equipment will interoperate, primarily with Cisco's, said Hank Zannini, Avici's business development vice president.

"Then we can worry about the next step, making it go a bit faster," he said. "It doesn't matter if you've got 10 terabits if you can't interoperate."

Although none seems to have a substantial lead-granted, it's difficult to tell until they can release more information about specific trials and results-all companies are concerned with at least keeping pace.

"Carriers have long testing cycles," Zannini said. "It takes a long time to deploy [new equipment], and if somebody else gets their equipment [deployed] ahead of yours, it's hard to displace them. It's really about windows of opportunity."

It's crucial for the companies to keep pace with each other although it's hard to discern exactly where everyone else stands, said Dave Passmore, research director for NetReference.

Nexabit, for example, just received $20 million in its second round of funding. Companies at that stage can't afford to risk leaking valuable information to competitors, especially when they're racing to hit the same basic deadline. "They all need to have a major coming-out party this fall, because everyone else is," Passmore said.

MOVING UP AND OUT Sprint Canada has signed a five-year, $400 million contract with Lucent Technologies to build out its local telephone service. The carrier will use Lucent's AnyMedia switching and access systems and the Advanced Intelligent Network platform.

ALPHABET SOUP Cisco Systems has combined its Layer 2 Forwarding protocol with Microsoft's Point to Point Tunneling Protocol to create the L2TP protocol. The protocol is shipping as an extension of Cisco's IOS software. Used between Cisco devices, L2TP allows service providers to offer differentiated services and tiered pricing for virtual private networks.

COLORADO GOES COMMERCIAL ICG Netcom is leasing dark fiber capacity from the city of Longmont, Colo. ICG is the first commercial customer on the municipally owned fiber backbone. The service provider is currently installing a 200-mile fiber network in northern Colorado, and will interconnect with the city's electric and telecommunications utility.