Alcatel-Lucent will provide 100Gb Ethernet capabilities to increase speed and reduce power consumption for its routers and switches, it announced today.
Using Alcatel's FP2 silicon technology, its older routers can support 100 Gigabit line cards with double the performance and 10 times the current fastest speed. This allows customers who already have its 7750 Service Router (SR) and 7450 Ethernet Service Switch (ESS) to simply add new cards and increase their capacity enormously.
Rather than just increasing capacity at the core, it does so at the edge of the network - what Alcatel calls the "command centre where most of the intelligence in the network resides."
The company claimed it can reduce the cost per bit of IP transport and make the system more efficient. It also said that the FP2 silicon technology can reduce power consumption to almost four watts per gigabit.
Basil Alwan, president of Alcatel-Lucent's IP activities, said: "Delivering higher performance networks and reducing power consumption per bit is essential to meeting the needs of service providers worldwide."
Alcatel-Lucent also introduced new 10-port 10 Gigabit Ethernet line cards today for the 7750 SR and 7450 ESS. These are designed for customers who may need more capacity but not necessarily the 100Gb speed.
Also based on the FP2 silicon technology, these line cards deliver up to three hundred 10Gb Ethernet ports in a standard telecom rack. Support for a full range of IP and Multiprotocol label switching (MPLS) services is also available.
The new line cards will be demonstrated later this year and be available commercially in 2010.
