Huawei Technologies is taking on Cisco Systems in the terabit router space with a new service router that\'s smaller, denser and greener.
Like Cisco\'s ASR 9000 router launched late last year, the NetEngine V6 400G-platform universal service router (USR), launched at CommunicAsia Tuesday, is designed to eventually support up to 400 Gbps per slot, and puts an emphasis on support for video.
However, Huawei is also claiming a higher port density and a backplane capacity of 30 Tbps per system (compared to the ASR 9000\'s 6.4 Tbps backplane capacity).
More crucially, says Carol Sun, senior marketing manager of Huawei Datacom Marketing, the NE40E USR is 60% smaller physically while still supporting 960 GE ports per chassis, and uses 10% less power per 10G.
That - plus backward-compatibility with existing 10G and 40G line cards, which means less capex - adds up to lower TCO for operators, Sun told Show Daily.
Sun said the NE40E USR is optimized primarily for HD video and mobile backhaul.
She also acknowledged that no ones really needs 400G at the moment - 100G isn\'t even standardized yet - but that they will in a few years as LTE networks start rolling out and demand for HD video grows, which will accelerate traffic growth dramatically.
"The object is to design a system capable of allowing customers to future-proof their metro networks to upgrade at their own pace," she said. "They can run 10G and 40G now, then 100G and 400G when they\'re ready without having to buy all-new equipment."