What He Said: Cisco Steps Up Its Router Game
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Last week Cisco Systems made a big product announcement that the networking giant said would change the Internet forever. What could it be? Well it was a big router, a really big router that would allow more bits than ever to flow over the world’s fiber backbones. And the market yawned, because bits are a commodity and it is hard to tell a million bushels of wheat in a pile from two million bushels of wheat. And Cisco’s enterprise customers — its biggest business customers — have plenty of bandwidth already, thanks.
Well that’s the entire point: corporations, where T1‘s still dominate, use less bandwidth per person than we do at our house, where Dora the Explorer is our goddess and Netflix rules. So the pundits and analysts looked at this new Cisco router, the CRS-3, and saw it as either logical growth driven by Moore’s Law or logical growth driven by competition from Juniper Networks, or both. No changing the Internet forever, they wrote. Nothing to see here, folks. Move along.
Except this time the pundits and analysts were probably wrong.
The CRS-3 is not for the Fortune 500 guys. Cisco has accepted that they can’t easily get big companies to expand the pipe and expand the router much beyond where they are today. HTTP just is too simple and clean. Cisco’s last stab at building enterprise bandwidth demand was telepresence, which needs a DS3 per node, but their Tandberg acquisition (telepresence lite) shows they are taking even that down-market.
So why the CRS-3? The CRS-3 is for all the all-IP network of the future and as such is aimed primarily at telcos, not big business. The CRS-3 will enable the all-IP all the time future Internet as described just this week by the Federal Communications Commission:
– Video over IP
– Voice over IP
– TV over IP
– Radio over IP
– 3D over IP
– IP over IP
The difference with the CRS-3 is thinking globally. Why not watch a Russian TV station with subtitles or translations? Listen to music from anywhere, since it generally needs no translation. This is the new market for AT&T and global members of the Fortune 500. They get it; the market is not the USA, but the right demographic group globally. The CRS-3 is going to be the IP carrier to these demographic groups.
It’s a new kind of market segmentation that really makes sense when bits are what is being sold and those bits travel near the speed of light.
And, despite Cisco’s evident failure to explain itself well, the CRS-3 will change the Internet forever.
Maybe the GOOG’s network of the future.
BTW Google App’s store is pretty interesting, especially the Intuit stuff,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0yWVpaM-gg
[...] I, Cringely [...]
“Except this time the pundits and analysts were probably wrong”. Except? This time? Probably? This would be no exception.
Ah, if only they had the Lucent Lambda Router! Oh wait, the world wasn’t ready for all digital all optical routers back in 2001, let along 2010.
Thanks for the article, Bob. Perhaps this will finally mean good and reliable internet and IP services from AT&T? I can’t speak for the rest of the USA, but in the SF Bay Area, specifically the Tr-Valley area, AT&T’s internet services are less then great. Specifically, much slower the Comcast Cable, seem to cause DSL modems to reset too often and the email reliability is far from ideal.
So here is to hoping that these great new routers well help us get some great IP services in the near future and some honest to goodness competition to get the prices down for high bandwidth usage.
Keep up the great work Bob and I hope a sequel to Triumph of the Nerds and Nerds 2.0.1 is in the works because that still ranks as one of my all time favorites on TV.
cue manical little robot laugh from AI. hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha We waited years for ATT to improve service. Now have wireless at half advertised speed in the 800k range. Still better than the end of the line 200k range from ATT. BTW, here in ex SWB country they use Yahoo for email and content. (See last column)
I don’t think AT&T and Yahoo even want to be in business.
This is the direction of the future-
http://www.terena.org/activities/ngn-ws/ws2/bennett-ipowdm.pdf
I think most people understand this is a carrier router in that the full name of the product (according to Cisco, anyway) is the “Cisco CRS-3 Carrier Routing System” and it’s priced around $90k.
Revolationary? Hardly. There was no CRS-2, and the CRS-1 came out in 2004. The CRS-3 performance improvement is not even keeping up with Moore’s law, let alone the Internet’s growth rate.
A link to the FCC announcement (or at the least, its name, “The National Broadband Plan”) would have been nice:
http://broadband.gov/plan/
Hey, i just came here after a quick google search. Fine blog you have here! Keep it up!
Ton blog est vraiment bien redige. J’espere que tu vas continuer a nous faire d’aussi bon articles.
Ton blog est vraiment bien redige. J’espere que tu vas continuer a nous faire d’aussi bon articles.
Yawn. Slow news week, Cringe? More like slow news decade. Tech has fizzled out. Except for apple, the next big thing was in the 90s. That is why they Apple gets so much press.
@Mkkby True, this is not a typical Jazzy post from Bob. But the use of this sort of equipment by carriers WILL impact your Jazzy iPad.
“Except this time the pundits and analysts were probably wrong”. Except? This time? Probably? This would be no exception.
if you hook up 30+ CRS-3 routers, you get the headline bandwidth.
otherwise, not.
you can do the same thing with Juniper now, at similar high high cost.
we are going to need a higher leap in the carrier routing category, based on bandwidth doubling every 14-18 months. these guys can’t sling silicon fast enough at the rate they’re going to buy us 4 years. it’s going to take a whole new approach IMPHO, something along the order of pre-allocation of route based on where Customer X usually surfs to, and then the bonded pipes get switched that are all typically going to the same place.
this is not exactly the same as the “we don’t need your steenkin’ network neutrality” parallel networks it appears carriers would LIKE to build for their favored customers. it’s more like a predictive caching.
my own personal sentiments only, nobody at work sees this in the rush to wrap the bits in tissue paper and put them in the box before they fall off the conveyor belt.
I have been trying to get my CCNA for about a year now.
Damn Cisco and their tests.
This is a really interesting story you wrote on your website. I wish you write more till i come back the next time. But i wrote some posts about my favorite artists to share with you. I released a story about one of my favorite musicians Schiller and his new album called Atemlos. Perhaps you like to check my articles.
Specifically, much slower the Comcast Cable, seem to cause DSL modems to reset too often and the email reliability is far from ideal.
Magaret Brun
To support your gaming site please try to cheap VPS
I really enjoyed visiting your site, and it looks wonderful. If you get a chance you should visit my site as well. I hope you have a nice day!
Really it can be extremely beneficial post and I like to read these skills and also I am trying it and several for sharing such type of techniques please retain it sharing.
Nice information, many thanks to the author. It is incomprehensible to me now, but in general, the usefulness and significance is overwhelming. Thanks again and good luck!
Your blog provided us with valuable information to work on.