ADTRAN Continues Roll -- Sales up 23% to $184 Million

ADTRAN's Q2 sales increased 23% to an all time record level of $184,227,000 for the quarter, compared to $150,361,000 for the second quarter of 2010. Net income increased 33% to $36,943,000 for the quarter, compared to $27,751,000 for the second quarter of 2010. Earnings per share, assuming dilution, increased 27% to $0.56 for the quarter, compared to $0.44 for the second quarter of 2010.


ADTRAN Chief Executive Officer Tom Stanton stated, "Our Company had an outstanding quarter reaching new highs on multiple fronts. The performance was led by our growth areas which combined grew 48% over the prior year, now representing 72% of our total company revenue. Moreover, every component of our growth areas, which include Broadband Access, Optical Access and Internetworking, individually attained new revenue highs. Broadband Access grew an impressive 71% over second quarter 2010, driven by the continued success of our Total Access 5000 and Fiber-to-the-Node platforms. Optical Access grew 36% and Internetworking grew 18%. These results allowed the company to achieve its fifth consecutive quarterly revenue record. As demonstrated by our results, we believe our highly differentiated solutions are exceptionally well positioned to take advantage of secular trends occurring in the markets we serve."


ADTRAN's Board of Directors declared a cash dividend for the second quarter of 2011 of $0.09 per common share.
http://www,adtran.com

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Eutelsat's Tooway Signs Partner for Ukraine

Eutelsat Communications announced a distribution agreement for the Tooway broadband satellite service with Eurosat-Ukraine, an affiliate of Altegrosky, a leading provider of satellite-delivered telecoms services in Russia and CIS countries.


The new contract covers distribution to consumers in the Ukraine of the Tooway new generation satellite broadband service, which is delivered via Eutelsat's KA-SAT satellite. The service promises download speeds of up to 10 Mbps and upload speeds of up to 4 Mbps.
http://www.tooway.com
http://www.altegrosky.ru

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Nokia and Siemens Partnership Continues in NSN

Nokia and Siemens have completed a strategic review of their joint venture, Nokia Siemens Networks, and have decided against pursuing a private equity investment or sale.


"We believe that the current shareholders are in the best position to further enhance the value of the company," said Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, chairman of Nokia Siemens Networks.


The company cited "good progress" in its turnaround plan, with first quarter 2011 results marking a third successive quarter of year-on-year reported net sales growth, as well as a fifth quarter of non-IFRS operating profits since it announced its change in strategy in November 2009.


Nokia Siemens Networks will undertake further steps to improve its efficiency and competitive position, while strengthening its capabilities in mobile broadband, services and customer experience management to drive and support customer roadmaps.


"Nokia and Siemens have reaffirmed their commitment and continue to be strong supporters of Nokia Siemens Networks," said Rajeev Suri, chief executive officer of Nokia Siemens Networks. "With us, they share the common goal of ensuring that Nokia Siemens Networks will be a sustainable and powerful leader in the industry, benefiting from its strength in innovation."http://www.nokiasiemensnetworks.com

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FCC Tightens E911 Location Accuracy Requirements

The FCC took action to strengthen the Enhanced 911 (E911) location accuracy rules for wireless carriers.


Wireless carriers typically provide E911 location using either a "handset-based" method, where location information is generated by GPS or similar technology installed in the caller's handset, or a "network-based" method, where location information is generated by triangulating the caller's wireless signal in relation to nearby cell sites in the carrier's network.


The FCC's rules require wireless carriers to identify the caller's location for a specified percentage
of 911 calls within a range of 50 to 150 meters for carriers that use handset-based technology, and 100 to 300
meters for carriers that use network-based technology.


In September 2010, the Commission adopted benchmarks for wireless carriers to meet these handset- and network-based accuracy thresholds at the county or Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP) level for increasing percentages of 911 calls over an eight-year period.


In today's action, the FCC announced that after the conclusion of the eight-year implementation period in early 2019, it will sunset the existing network-based rule and require all wireless carriers to meet the more stringent location accuracy standards in the handset-based rule. The Commission will set a specific sunset date for the network-based standard at a later date, after further notice and comment. The Commission also required new wireless network carriers to meet the handset-based accuracy standard going forward.


The FCC will also require all wireless carriers to test their E911 location accuracy results periodically and to share the results with PSAPs, state 911 offices, and the Commission, subject to confidentiality safeguards. The Commission referred to the Communications Security, Reliability, and Interoperability Council (CSRIC) the task of making recommendations to the Commission in six months on specific, cost effective testing requirements and methodologies.


In addition, the FCC is seeking comment on whether it should apply existing 911 rules that cover two-way interconnected VoIP services to "outbound-only" interconnected VoIP services, which allow users to place outbound telephone calls but not to receive inbound telephone calls. The Commission is also asking for ways it might ensure that all interconnected VoIP providers can provide automatic location information for VoIP 911 calls, rather than relying on the subscriber to register his or her location with the VoIP provider. This includes considering mechanisms that would enable "over-the-top" interconnected VoIP service providers and underlying network access providers to jointly support the provision of location accuracy information to PSAPs.

The Commission is also seeking input on ways that location technologies that are already being developed
for commercial broadband applications might be leveraged to support 911 location determination. Finally,
the Commission is soliciting comment on how to improve location accuracy for 911 calls made from indoors,
including large office buildings where it may be difficult to locate an individual in trouble based only on a
street address, and directed the CSRIC to develop recommendations for cost effective indoor location
accuracy testing." http://www.fcc.gov

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T-Mobile USA Continues Roll Out of HSPA+ 42

T-Mobile USA has expanded portions of its HSPA+ mobile broadband network to support top theoretical peak speeds up to 42 Mbps. The upgraded network is now available to more than 170 million people across the United States. Ericsson is playing a key role in the network upgrade.


T-Mobile's aggressive rollout plan called for doubling its HSPA+ network speeds by mid-2011.


T-Mobile customers now have access to the 42 4G network in Baltimore; Boston; Charlotte, N.C.; Hartford and New Haven, Conn.; Indianapolis, Ind.; Lancaster, Pa.; Minneapolis, Minn.; Providence, R.I.; and Washington, D.C., among several others.


The company recently introduced the T-Mobile Rocket™ 3.0 laptop stick, its first HSPA+ 42-capable device, offering average download speeds on its HSPA+ 42 network approaching 10 Mbps, with peak speeds of 27 Mbps.


"As we build toward a networked society in which any device that benefits from a connection will have one, faster mobile broadband speeds and more data capacity are essential," said Angel Ruiz, head of Ericsson North America. "With this expansion to HSPA+ 42 Mbps, Ericsson and T-Mobile USA add to the companies' long history of partnership."


"In cooperation with Ericsson, we're now able to provide access to T-Mobile's HSPA+ 42 Mbps network to even more customers," said Neville Ray, chief technology officer, T-Mobile USA. "Ericsson is a crucial partner in the expansion of our HSPA+ network, which allows us to offer customers increased 4G speeds, network capacity and reliability." http://www.ericsson.com http://newsroom.t-mobile.com/articles/t-mobile-faster-4g-network

• In May 2011, T-Mobile USA activated HSPA+ with top theoretical downlink speeds of 42 Mbps in 50 markets across the U.S. This is double the top speed previously available from T-Mobile USA.
  
  
  The launch includes major markets such as Atlanta, Chicago, Denver, Detroit, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, New Orleans, Phoenix, Pittsburgh, Portland, and San Francisco, among others.
  
  
  T-Mobile’s first 42 Mbps-capable product is The Rocket 3.0 laptop stick, manufactured by ZTE.

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Department of Energy Builds National 100GigE Research Net

The Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and Internet2 announced plans to build one of the world's fastest and most advanced scientific networks on behalf of the U.S. Department of Energy (ESnet).


Berkeley Lab has received $62 million in funding to create the Advanced Networking Initiative (ANI) in order to develop a 100 Gbps prototype network between DOE's supercomputing centers to facilitate research and experimentation around this new technology. The prototype network is a key step to the DOE's vision of an eventual 1 terabit wavelength network to connect DOE facilities. Part of the ANI funding was also used to create a high-performance reconfigurable testbed where researchers and industry can test advanced concepts in networking and develop new protocols.

Under the project, ESnet and Internet2 will build and operate the 100 Gbps ANI prototype network using one of the first national-scale deployments of 100 GigE. Internet2 will use fiber from Level 3 Communications' network. ESnet will also have the option to access 4.4 terabits per second (Tbps) of capacity for the ESnet ANI network using Ciena's 6500 Packet-Optical Platform. The ESnet ANI prototype network will initially connect three DOE unclassified supercomputing centers: the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC) at Berkeley Lab, Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility (OLCF) in Tennessee, and Argonne Leadership Computing Facility (ALCF) in Illinois, as well as the Manhattan Landing International Exchange Point (MANLAN) in New York.


During the prototype phase, the network will be used for applications and networking research, including connecting the Magellan cloud computing resources at NERSC to ALCF, and the Acadia project, which will develop network interface controller (NIC) hardware and device-driver/protocol-specific software for host and gateway systems operating at 40 and 100 Gbps. The prototype network will also serve as a platform for building out technologies leading to an eventual 1-terabit per second wavelength network.


"The ANI prototype is a crucial step forward to a future nationwide 100 Gbps production network that will connect DOE scientists with unprecedented network capabilities to conduct data-intensive research and collaborations, bolstering U.S. scientific innovation in areas that will impact society, such as climate studies, clean fuels, particle physics, and genomics," said Steve Cotter, ESnet department head. "The agreement extends a strong working relationship between Internet2 and ESnet to provide the research and education community with the most robust networking resources to meet its current and future needs."


"Science is becoming more data-intensive and remote instruments are producing significantly more data volume than in previous generations. As a result, research network traffic is growing at twice the rate of commercial Internet traffic, and the trend is expected to accelerate as the scope of scientific collaborations increases and scientists around the world draw data from geographically dispersed experimental facilities like the Large Hadron Collider," said Dave Lambert, Internet2 president and CEO, "Increasing the capacity of networks is more important than ever to enable scientists to analyze data, collaborate, and combine data sets in new ways from these experiments." http://www.internet2.eduhttp://www.lbl.gov/

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EZchip Implements OpenFlow 1.1 on its Network Processor

EZchip Semiconductor has implemented the latest OpenFlow spec, version 1.1, on its NP-4 network processor by several independent bodies.


EZchip noted that while the previous version of OpenFlow, version 1.0, has seen multiple silicon-based implementations, the recently released version 1.1 strains silicon implementations by requiring a high degree of packet processing flexibility, in particular performing repetitive nested lookups in various tables.


One of the implementations of OpenFlow 1.1 on the NP-4 was developed by the Telecom Research Team (LTIR Lab) at the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM), while others are at corporations that prefer confidentiality. The LTIR Research Lab was founded by Professor Omar Cherkaoui who is leading a major project on the virtualization of network equipment called Netvirt.


"EZchip's NP-4 processor provides the flexibility and performance necessary for implementing OF1.1 as well as any future versions of the standard. NP-4's easy programming model enabled the UQAM Netvirt team to realize our OF1.1 full implementation with a high level of flexibility and a full 100 Gigabits. We are very pleased with the outcome," said Prof. Omar Cherkaoui, Université du Québec à Montréal. http://www.ezchip.com

• OpenFlow is a new protocol that is being developed to separate the data plane from the control plane in a switch or router. The goal is to enable software-defined switching architectures. Work is being carried out by the OpenFlow Switch Consortium and Stanford University.

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ZTE Claims 24 x 1.3 Tbps WDM Record

ZTE achieved a signal transmission record of 24 Tbps (24 x 1.3 Tbps) over its WDM platform -- a new world record for optical transmission. The result was published as a Post Deadline Paper (PDP) at the recent Opto-Electronics and Communications Conference (OECC) 2011 in Kaohsiung, Taiwan.


ZTE said it expects 1 Tbps bit rate per channel to become the industry mainstream after 100 Gbps.


ZTE's record-breaking 24 Tbps WDM system carried 12 C-band signals and 12 L-band signals at the rate of 1.3 Tbps per channel (a net rate of 1 Tbps after eliminating forward error correction or FEC). Each signal is received by using QPSK (Quadrature Phase Shift Keying) of Polarization Wavelength Division Multiplexing, optical OFDM modulation code format and coherent optical detection. The transmission distance is 2400km standard single mode fiber by using the standard Erbium Doped Fiber Amplifiers (EDFA).


"Over the years, we have always been devoted to 100G and beyond-100G technology researches and committed ourselves to providing 100G solutions for IP network and optical transport networks. In the future, we will invest more resources to bring more of our research results to market with 100G global deployment," said Mr. Fan Xiaobing, general manager of ZTE's bearer network product line. http://www.zte.com.cn

• In March 2011 at Optical Fiber Communication Conference (OFC), ZTE announced the successful transmission of single-channel 10 Tbps optical OFDM signals.

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Qualcomm Appoints Matt Grob as CTO

Qualcomm announced the appointment of Matt Grob as executive vice president and chief technology officer (CTO), replacing Roberto Padovani, who will remain an executive vice president and will continue to provide his guidance in support of Qualcomm's research, development, standards and emerging technology efforts.


In addition to the new role of CTO, Grob will continue to lead Qualcomm's Corporate R&D division and provide oversight to Qualcomm Corporate Engineering Services.


Grob joined Qualcomm in 1991 as an engineer working on modem designs and firmware for government projects. His contributions have included system design, standardization and project leadership for programs such as early CDMA data services, the Globalstar satellite system and later 1x EV-DO wireless Internet access technology. Grob's achievements in cellular data research led to progressive leadership positions in developing advanced 3G technologies. Since his promotion to senior vice president of Corporate R&D in 2006, Grob has expanded the group's mission beyond wireless connectivity into exciting new areas such as Augmented Reality, wireless charging, processor and applications enhancements and peer-to-peer technologies. Grob has more than 60 patents granted in the fields of wireless communication and cellular technology.
http://www.qualcomm.com

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Sierra Wireless Supplies LTE Devices for AT&T's Upcoming Launch

Sierra Wireless will supply the first devices for AT&T's pending LTE network in five cities this summer.


The first two devices are the AT&T Mobile Hotspot Elevate 4G (also known as the Sierra Wireless AirCard 754S mobile hotspot) and the AT&T USBConnect Momentum 4G (the Sierra Wireless AirCard 313U USB modem. Both devices will be available to AT&T customers this summer.


AT&T recently announced plans to roll out its 4G LTE network in five markets - Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio - later this summer.
http://www.sierrawireless.com

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AT&T Completes Divestiture of Alestra (Mexico)

ALFA completed its purchase of AT&T's 49 percent stake in Alestra, the Mexican telecom company. ALFA is now the sole shareholder of Alestra. Financial terms were not disclosed.
http://www.att.com
http://www.alestra.com.mx

• Alestra offers a range of business-class services, including converged communications, hosting and cloud capabilities. The company operates a 40 Gbps fiber network spanning 6,700 kms. across Mexico, including 1,750 kms of metro rings.

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NETGEAR Chooses Quantenna 4x4 MIMO Chips for Video over Wi-Fi

NETGEAR will develop next generation residential gateway and video bridge products based on Quantenna Communications'Full-11n 4x4 MIMO chipset to enhance their wireless video distribution capabilities.


Quantenna's family of Full-11n™ chipsets uses the company's cost-optimized, third-generation 4x4 MIMO technology to deliver up to 600 Mbps of bandwidth. The chipsets enable manufacturers to build products for delivering IPTV and other video streaming and data distribution services throughout the home over an ultra-reliable, high-performance Wi-Fi connection.


"NETGEAR and Quantenna have worked closely over the years, and we continue to create products that set new standards for wireless HD video-distribution quality and reliability throughout the home," said Michael Clegg, senior vice president and general manager - Service Provider Business Unit with NETGEAR. "Our new Quantenna-based networking products will take advantage of the latest version of Quantenna's superior technology to deliver best-in-class coverage and performance." http://www.quantenna.com

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Tekelec's LTE Diameter Routing and HSS Deployed by Tier One

Tekelec's integrated Home Subscriber Server (HSS) address resolution database and its LTE Diameter Signaling Router (DSR) have been deployed by a tier-one North American Service Provider. This allows the service provider to scale LTE services by routing Diameter messages to the appropriate HSS in the network.


Tekelec's LTE products include:


Home Subscriber Server which serves as the central authentication and mobility management point in LTE Evolved Packet Core and IMS networks, and supports the latest 3GPP standards, including Idle-Mode Signaling Reduction. The HSS is an application on Tekelec's Subscriber Data Server, which also includes the Subscriber Profile Repository (SPR), the Equipment Identity Register (EIR), the next-generation Home Location Register (ngHLR) and an HLR-proxy to ensure seamless 3G/LTE services and device management.


Diameter Signaling Router, which scales and manages services and applications in LTE core networks for hundreds of millions of subscribers. The DSR centralizes routing, traffic management and load-balancing tasks associated with Diameter traffic.


Policy Server, a Policy and Charging Rules Function (PCRF) that integrates with the HSS and acts as the brain for policy coordination, dynamic bandwidth control, charging, consumption and other factors for a subscriber's entire data session.


Performance Intelligence Center (PIC), a performance management system that converts network traffic information into useful business intelligence for service providers to improve the customer experience. The PIC integrates with the DSR to eliminate the need for additional probes and network elements to analyze how subscribers are using IP-enabled devices and applications. In addition, Tekelec added the PIC troubleshooting features to the core DSR platform to continuously monitor the DSR's performance.


Each of these products runs on Tekelec's EAGLE XG middleware platform, built to meet the core network scalability needs of the world's largest networks.


"As service providers evolve to LTE, they are discovering new revenue opportunities and architectural hurdles," said Ron de Lange, president and CEO at Tekelec. http://www.tekelec.com

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Bharti Airtel Picks IBM for IT Support Across Africa

Bharti Airtel has awarded a 10-year contract to IBM to provide IT solutions to its employees across 16 African countries. In terms of the agreement, IBM will provide a standard operating environment, help desk and desk side support to enhance employee efficiency and convenience.


The announcement builds on a strategic partnership signed in late 2010 to manage the computing technology and services to power Airtel's mobile communications network spanning 16 African countries. http://www.ibm.com

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Chile's Entel Deploys Dual-Carrier HSPA for 42 Mbps Peak

Chile's Entel is launching dual carrier HSPA technology for peak downstream rates of up to 42 Mbps. Ericsson is the lead supplier.


Commercially, Entel will offer plans with a maximum speed of 22 Mbps, with an average download speed of 6 Mbps, positioning the company well ahead of the game as compared to competitors.


Antonio Büchi, CEO for Entel, says: "We proudly launch DC-HSPA+ 42Mbps technology, making Entel the operator with the fastest mobile broadband in Latin America. Ericsson's technology provides Entel with a cost-effective way to secure the most advanced mobile broadband network in the country and gives our customers a true mobile broadband experience." http://www.ericsson.com

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Qualcomm Atheros Introduces 1 Gbps EPON Chip

Qualcomm Atheros introduced a low power 1 Gbps Ethernet passive optical networking (EPON) chip.


The QCA8829 offers power consumption of less than 200mW for grid applications with Gigabit Ethernet (GE) PHY sleep mode enabled and less than 600mW when running full 1 Gbps throughput with GE PHY enabled. The 76-pin package size fits into a small form-factor pluggable (SFP) optical module, simplifying system design for plug-and-play connection with an Ethernet switch or IP router.


It supports multiple standards, such as those used by cable operators in North America, provisioning for smart grid applications over PON in China, and EPON infrastructures in markets worldwide. Specifically, this support includes the North American DOCSIS Provisioning of Ethernet (DPoE) 1.0 specification, IEEE 802.3ah EPON specification, the China State Grid EPON specification, and the China Telecom (CTC) EPON specification.


Samples of the QCA8829 and reference design kits are available now. Volume shipments will be available in the fourth quarter of 2011. http://www.qca.qualcomm.com

• In July 2010, Atheros acquired Opulan Technologies, a privately held Chinese fabless semiconductor company specializing in solutions for passive optical networking (PON) and broadband access aggregation (MUX).

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AT&T Deploys Bloom Energy Fuel Cells

AT&T will deploy Bloom Energy Servers at eleven sites in California to power their operations. The Bloom Boxes leverage solid oxide fuel cell technology to deliver clean, reliable, affordable onsite power from either natural gas or biogas. Deployment sites include facilities in Corona, Fontana, Hayward, Pasadena, Redwood City, Rialto, San Bernardino, San Diego, San Jose, and San Ramon.


The installations will provide 7.5 megawatts (MW) of power while reducing CO2 emissions by approximately 50% compared to the grid and virtually eliminates all SOx, NOx, and other harmful smog forming particulate emissions. Once fully operational these Bloom Boxes are expected to produce over 62 million kilowatt-hours (kWh) of energy annually.


"AT&T is committed to finding more sustainable ways to power our business operations as part of our efforts to incorporate alternative and renewable energy sources into our energy portfolio. Bloom Energy provided us with a solution that was not only cost comparable but also allows us to minimize environmental impact," said John Schinter, director of energy, AT&T.


The Bloom Energy Server installations will begin later this year, and will be fully operational by mid 2012. http://www.att.com http://www.Bloomenergy.com

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Citrix Acquires Cloud.com for Hypervisor-agnostic Scaling

Citrix Systems has acquired Cloud.com, which provides software infrastructure platforms for cloud providers, for an undisclosed sum.
Cloud.com delivers an open source software platform for launching either public or private cloud environments. The company currently has over 50 large-scale production clouds in deployment.


The Cloud.com product line is a hypervisor-agnostic solution for building clouds the way the world's largest and most successful public clouds are built – simple, automated, elastic, scalable and efficient. The design goal is to enable multi-tier, multi-tenant services. It can be deployed on-premise or as hosted cloud services.


Citrix said the acquisition of Cloud.com enables it to offer a complete portfolio of virtualization, orchestration and networking solutions purpose built for the Cloud Era. The company reiterated a commitment to openness and interoperability . The Cloud.com product line will continue to support leading commercial hypervisors such as Citrix XenServer and VMware vSphere, as well as open source hypervisors like Xen.


Citrix intends to add support for Microsoft products like Hyper-V and System Center to the Cloud.com product line, as well as support a full range of "platform-as-a-service" development environments, storage systems, servers and management software. http://www.cloud.com http://www.citrix.com

• Cloud.com was founded in 2008. The company is based in Cupertino, California.

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Cisco Live! Keynote Highlights: Enterprise Collaboration, Cisco Restructuring

As it works through its restructuring, Cisco is determined to remain a customer-driven company said John Chambers, speaking at the Cisco Live! event in Las Vegas.


The restructuring primarily aims to simplify the company's operations, refocus on core areas of network switching, routing and collaboration, and to speed-up decision making. Multiple groups inside the company are being integrated by network architecture. The sales organization is being flattened to bring decision making closer to the customer.


Enterprise collaboration was the focus of this year's Cisco Live! keynote, tying multiple forms of collaboration from chat, to Webex to full telepresence into unified enterprise applications. Chambers predicted that video traffic will grow from 50% of enterprise traffic today to over 90% in 2014 as video becomes the primary way that businesses collaborate. This will coincide with four megatrends: mobile, social, visual and virtual.


Cisco Chief Demonstration Officer, Jim Grubb, showed a networked collaboration scenario for the oil & gas industry. This included a video-enabled robot streaming footage from inside a gas pipeline to technicians equipped with Cius tablets.


Cisco Live! noted record attendance both in-person and virtually. http://www.ciscolive.com http://www.cisco.com

• On 11-May-2011, Cisco announced a reorganization aimed at simplifying its organization and reduce costs by $1 billion in its FY '12 expense run rate. This is likely to include job cuts, although the number was not specified. Cisco also announced its intention to divest or exit underperforming operations, including the Flip consumer camera division which was dropped last month. The company will also start issuing quarterly dividends. At the time, Chambers said Q4 is likely to continue to show weakness as the company works through these various issues. The company expects Q4 revenue growth to be in the range of flat to up 2% on a year-over-year basis.

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Cisco Overhauls Catalyst 6500 with 2 Tbps Engine, Better IPv6, Upgraded NetFlow

Cisco unveiled a set of enhancements to its flagship Catalyst 6500 Series Switches to help enterprise customers to evolve their network infrastructure for the proliferation of connected devices, growth of video traffic, cloud computing business models and increasingly mobile workforces. The company also updated Cisco IOS software with over 200 new features.


The newly overhauled Catalyst 6500 offers seamless IPv4 and IPv6 support from the switch's hardware platform, new network virtualization capabilities, a comprehensive set of L4-7 integrated services modules and new application performance and visibility monitoring through a completely revamped implementation of NetFlow.


The key element of the overhaul is a new Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series Supervisor Engine 2T, a 2-terabit card that delivers 80 Gbps per slot, new feature-rich 10 Gbps and 10 GigE line cards, and next-generation borderless services. The new supervisor engine can increase the throughput capability of the Catalyst 6500 from 720 Gbps to 2 Tbps, a threefold increase. It can also quadruple the number of devices or users that can connect to a network. For example, a single Catalyst 6500 can now support up to 10,000 mobile devices.


All new line cards and the 2 Tbps supervisor are compatible with all Cisco E-Series chassis models, offering minimal intervention to the existing Catalyst 6500 E-Series infrastructure. Cisco said this compatibility prevents rip-and-replace upgrades.


Highlights of the rollout include:


Cisco IOS New features include: Advanced Security Services with the full Cisco TrustSec implementation, including hardware-based MacSec for wire-rate data confidentiality and integrity; Security Group Tagging for role assignment and persistence through the network; and Security Group Access Control Lists for role enforcement. The unique Catalyst 6500 Supervisor 2T Layer 3 Security Group Tagging allows for the highly secure interoperability and interconnection of geographically disperse networks. Scalable Network Virtualization Services with VRF-Lite, MPLS, and native hardware-based VPLS as well as MPLS over GRE are available at full interface speeds.


Next-generation service modules. New L4-7 mobility, security, network analysis and load balancing service modules allow customers to reduce the number of L4-7 devices in their network they need to manage, improving energy efficiency and reducing carbon footprint.


IPv6. The Catalyst 6500 now offer IPv6 First Hop Security features (such as device tracking, Neighbor Discovery Protocol Inspection, and IPv6 per-port address limits.


LAN/WAN boundary. Virtual Private LAN Services support and Bridged Domain Technology, enable rapid and flexible service provisioning, because the service bandwidth is not tied to the physical interface.


System-comprehensive and multiprotocol NetFlow. Cisco has added support for Flexible and Sampled NetFlow for enhanced and granular monitoring of IPv4, IPv6, multicast and MPLS traffic. This promises up to a fourfold increase—to 1 million—in the number of NetFlow entries that can be maintained.


Video. The Cisco Supervisor Engine 2T provides up to a 16-fold increase in multicast route scalability. It also delivers major improvements to the way the Catalyst 6500 selectively forwards multicast traffic to only the links that have solicited them. Called IGMPv3 and MLDv2 Snooping, these enhancements help ensure that multicasting does not cause an unnecessary load on the host device, and they are especially useful for bandwidth-intensive IP multicast applications such as IPTV.


The new Catalyst 6500 Series is available now. http://www.cisco.com

• The Cisco Catalyst 6500 was introduced in 1999 and has a $42 billion installed base, nearly 700,000 systems/110 million ports deployed and more than 25,000 customers worldwide.

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