Alcatel's 7950 Router Storms the Market
Posted by Jenn Cano on Tue, Jul 03, 2012 @ 06:59 AM
Recently Alcatel introduced a new line of routers that threatens to give Cisco and Juniper a run for their money. On May 22, 2012 Alcatel unveiled a new family of Internet core routers that they have been diligently working on for the past three years. This revolutionary technology promises to be the most innovative and powerful product currently in the industry. The new 7950 line will enhance network operations and prepare their core networks to embrace the rapid expansion of smartphone and tablets, the conversion to cloud applications, and the fast growing video market.
Alcatel has been selling routers for the past 10 years, but these new routers put them on a whole new playing field. They’ve never been a real contender in the router market in the past. They’ve been holding on to about only 24 percent of the current router market share while Cisco and Juniper hold the majority of the rest. They just haven’t been able to compete until now. The 7950 XRS, which is short for Extensible Routing System, will be available in three different models. Analyst Jeffrey Stuart from Nomura predicts by 2014 Cisco will drop up to 10 percent of their current market share and Juniper could drop up to 4 percent as Alcatel will capture these pieces as they fall. But, Juniper will likely feel more of the impact as routers make up the majority of their product line.
Just to give you an idea of the vast improvements in these new routers, the 7950 XRS-40, supports 32 terabits per second (Tbps) capacity and 160 100Gigabit Ethernet ports in a single system, which is five times the density of today’s core routers. The routers also slash power consumption by more than 66 percent over today’s current routers with the use of silicon and unique system designs.
The new design promises to give network operators, especially those switching from 3G to LTE, and increase in power and flexibility with their networks. They will be able to put far more data into these core routers. In fact, Verizon has already announced they will be the first network operator to use these new routers. “Verizon is experiencing tremendous growth in metro Ethernet services. Platforms such as the Alcatel-Lucent 7950 XRS will help us efficiently scale to support higher speeds and new capabilities while offering efficiency and flexibility,” said Ihab Tarazi, Vice President of Global IP and Transport Planning and Technology, Verizon. “We applaud Alcatel-Lucent for its bold approach to router value and performance.”
There were neartly 300 million smartphone shipments around the world in 2010, and with an expected shipment of tablets to be near 665 million tablets by 2016, Alcatel introduced these new tablets at just the right time. There is room for significant growth as the future router market is set for wide expansion. Not only are smartphone and tablet usage increasing but the networks they use are expected to expand as well. Currently about 35 countries are using the LTE networks around the world. Ericsson predicts by 2017 there will be over 9 billion mobile subscribers on the planet which is quite impressive compared to the 6 billion counted at the end of 2011. Ericsson also predicts that by 2017 half of the world's population will be covered by 4G LTE networks. Smartphone subscriptions will number around three billion in 2017 compared to 700 million in 2011.
Alcatel is well on its way to capture this expansion. The recently agreed on a contract with Bharti Airtell who is an Indian telecommunications provider that services close to 20 emerging markets in Asia and Africa. Under this contract they will build an IP network and open up new markets around the world for Alcatel. America Movil recently chose Alcatel to help with the establishment of a 4G infrastructure in Latin America as well. Alcatel will also work with West Central wireless to launch 4G LTE services in the state of Texas.
XSi is happy to see Alcatel emerge into the router arena being a real contender with Cisco and Juniper keeping the chance for monopolies at bay. XSi is a provider of routers and all networking equipment and network maintenance. If you would like to have all your networking equipment maintained under one roof contact us today.