td: terrific post & much appreciated.
The knowledge deficit I have in this area is staggering, and wonder if you, BB or others can help with some questions:
And this brings up Avici (or some other nameless hot-box maker). Information on their router is at best sketchy --and only one customer to date -- Enron -- that I am aware of. But Enron field-tested Avici against both CSCO and Juniper, and at least claims the Avici router is far superior to that of Juniper's. (But Enron also has an equity stake in AVCI, so that takes something away from the endorsement.)
Enron is certainly high on AVCI's terabit routing, but with a little searching, I've found that others are also testing their wares: "Avici’s TSR on the other hand is already deployed within the National Transparent Optical Network (NTON), has received a combined $45 million commitment from Enron (ENE/$87.63/Buy) and Williams Communications, is in trials with AT&T, and has conducted testing with Deutsche Telekom (DT/$39/Market Peformer), and Qwest."
(see cnetinvestor.com )
So now it seems this little local (to me <g>) company is now playing with some of the big boys-- is it fair to assume that there is there room for multiple successful players in this sector? If AVCI's (or some other company's router) proves to be far superior (performance, scalability... a big and unproven assumption), are the switching costs high if one attempts to replace a current system from, say Juniper's router, to a company x router, instead of pursuing an upgrade to a higher performing Juniper product?
thanks in advance,
nosmo
(no positions in any of above companies, sadly <g>) |
