Cisco’s new switch has competitors flattered

DALLAS—Cisco Systems new venture into the optical switching realm has some vendors feeling flattered because of the striking similarities to existing products. This week at NFOEC here, Cisco pulled the wraps off on its new multiservice switch, the ONS15600, for the metro area that squeezes a Sonet add/drop mux and a digital cross-connect into one box.

The product takes direct aim at competitors’ products such as Ciena’s CoreDirector and Lucent Technologies’ LambdaUnite.

“Imitation is one of the greatest forms of flattery,” said Beth Perry, senior vice president of core networking at Ciena. “But if they want to come [into] this space they must start at the core and then move out. It was built as a metro switch, but doesn’t have the architecture for a next-generation mesh like CoreDirector. ” Perry said.

For Ciena, the CoreDirector has traditionally been one of its largest revenue generators, but Perry believes much of its success is due to the end-to-end nature of the Ciena portfolio.

“It’s very flattering,” said Ken Wirth, vice president of optical networking at Lucent.

So far, though, the flattery has gained Cisco little traction among large carriers. The vendor has two announced customers for the product--metro provider, Looking Glass Networks and U.S. Signal, a Michigan based CLEC. The switch sports a 320 Gb/s fabric and can support 384 OC-48 connections.