[chat - more Juniper: AT&T investing also]
AT&T Becomes Latest Firm To Invest In Networking Start-Up Juniper
NEW YORK -(Dow Jones)- Juniper Networks Inc., a Silicon Valley start-up that is trying to build a device to speed up Internet communications, Thursday said it has secured another $6 million in funding, this time from a a group of companies including AT&T Corp.
The new round of financing comes on top of $56 million already pledged by a number of large telecommunications-equipment makers and technology firms. Backers include Telefon AB LM Ericsson (ERICY), Lucent Technologies Inc. (LU), Northern Telecom Ltd. (NT), 3Com Corp. (COMS), Siemens AG (SMAWY), Newbridge Networks Corp. (NN) and Worldcom Inc.'s (WCOM) UUNet Technologies Inc. unit. The investors will have the opportunity to integrate Juniper's technology with their existing products.
Mountain View, Calif.-based Juniper has ambitious plans to develop key components for high-speed networking devices in a bid to challenge networking-market leader Cisco Systems Inc. (CSCO).
Juniper Chief Executive Officer Scott Kriens said the funding from AT&T (T) and the Anschutz Family Investment Co. LLC is significant because it came from companies operating networks, where Juniper's products might be deployed. The Anschutz Family Investment owns a majority interest in Qwest Communications International Inc. (QWST) which is building a fiber-optic network. AT&T has invested about $2 million while Anschutz has put in $2.5 million.
Juniper aims to marry advanced chip technology with a new breed of switch router - a computer that directs data between farflung networks - that can process information at rates of billions of bits per second.
Right now, the top speed of switches for the so-called backbones of major public networks range up to about 622 million bits a second, but operators can improve potential through-put, or capacity, by linking the switches together. Juniper and several competitors are seeking speeds of 2.4 billion bits per second or more, and through-put rates of 60 billion bits or more. The technology is considered essential to ending bottlenecks on the Internet.
Juniper, which is $20 million and two years into its development effort, has shied away from discussing its progress.
Last month, Juniper announced a deal with International Business Machines Corp. (IBM). IBM agreed to make custom specialty chips known as ASICs, or application specific integrated circuits, Juniper's devices.
Start-ups in the data-networking area always face long odds, because of the expense of developing such complex products, the level of competition, and the presence of Cisco, which is trying to squeeze out challengers by offering an end-to-end line of products. Cisco is testing a device that provides performance similar to the planned Juniper router. Juniper's investors want an alternative to Cisco in addition to the technology. |
