Cisco has said it has a router that can help phone companies and cable operators deal with the onslaught of traffic arising from the popularity of video on the internet.
On Monday, the company announced its latest edge router, the ASR 9000, which provides six times the capacity of Cisco's older-generation routers. The router, which can shuttle about 6.4TB (terabytes) per second worth of traffic across the network, can move the equivalent of 250,000 digital songs or 200 feature-length movies a second, the company said.
Routers are devices that shuttle packets across the internet. Four years ago, Cisco introduced its CRS-1 router, which is designed to handle heavy loads of traffic in the backbone or long-haul part of the network. Now Cisco has introduced the ASR 9000, which will connect the long-distance data network to local networks servicing cities and towns.
"The backbone of the network is well taken care of today," said Suraj Shetty, vice president of service provider marketing for Cisco. "And cable operators and phone companies have done a lot to improve the access part of their networks. We are providing a solution for the edge which connects them. And, with the ASR, they can future-proof their networks."
Shetty said that, over the next few years, service providers will have to upgrade their networks to keep up with the flood of video traffic. From YouTube to Hulu.com, people are watching more videos on the internet than ever before, and the trend is expected to continue. Today, about 25 percent of the traffic travelling over the internet is video. By 2012, it's expected that 50 percent of internet traffic will be video, Shetty said.
For consumers, a faster edge network means faster access to content. When a subscriber at home orders a video on demand, they won't have to wait the two to three minutes that they must wait today for the system to retrieve the video.
"With our solution, you won't see the buffering you usually see when you order a video on demand or when you click to watch a streaming video," Shetty said.
Cisco's new edge router will also help wireless operators transition from their old cellular networks to one based on IP. Previously, only short SMS messages or MMS messages were carried on a cellular network. However, today, wireless operators are handling email, web-surfing traffic and streaming audio and video.
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As the world economy slows down, some may wonder if phone companies and cable operators around the world will be able to afford these upgrades. Shetty said that they have little choice if they want to remain competitive.
"The competitive pressure is so strong today," he said. "And carriers need to ensure that their subscribers get the best experience. It takes $600 [£395] to $800 to acquire a new customer. And the network becomes a competitive advantage."
