Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : Nortel Networks (NT) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (5185)	3/28/2000 7:10:00 AM
From: Mike Perras	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 14638

Nortel stock split ?? Did I hear that correctly? Does anyone know the planned date? Is this planned prior to the split from BCE? Mike

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (5185)	3/28/2000 8:32:00 AM
From: Mr.Fun	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 14638

Ken, You are basically correct but you've left a little room for the Ciscophiles to argue, so let me try to define the market more sharply. These are Cisco's current Optical products: 1. Cisco's ISR 3303 (Cerent) - this is an access product that allows a carrier to combine multiple streams of SONET/SDH, ATM, or IP into a higher speed TDM circuit. It most closely competes with the low-end of the Tellabs Titan cross connect product line in that its primary function is traffic grooming. Its competitive strength comes from its extremely small form-factor and its ability to accept multiple protocols in their native mode. It is becoming very popular with data CLECs. This platform does not support OC-192 today, but it undoubtedly will once good OC-192 silicon is widely available. 2. Cisco Optical Transport (Pirelli) - The Pirelli product is an open interface DWDM theoretically capable of carrying 128 channels which could be OC-192. Cisco/Pirelli does NOT make long-haul SONET or SDH transmission gear. When you buy an open interface DWDM product, you must buy some other equipment that can transmit over each channel. It need not be SONET/SDH - an open DWDM system shouldn't care what protocol is used - Gigabit E-Net, FibreChannel, ATM, IP in SONET frames are all options. In the field, customers have reported significant reliability problems with this equipment - I'm sure Cisco has this as job one. 3. Cisco WavelengthRouter - For all the complaining that the LamdaRouter is not a Router because it doesn't look at Layer3, Cisco has chosen the same supposedly disingenuous naming convention. This is an O-E-O optical cross-connect. While pure optical will likely displace O-E-O architectures at some point (due to cost and scaling advantages), O-E-O is more practical today for rudimentary wavelength grooming. While this product is supposedly ready in a few months, they were showing empty cabinets in Baltimore. 4. SONET/SDH interfaces for routers and ATM switches - Cisco's OC-192 interface for the GSR is not a true OC-192, rather it uses a technique called striping to concatenate four OC-48's. This technique does not make as efficient use of a OC192 pipe as a pure OC192 interface. Every router vendor is struggling with this, as it is extraordinarily difficult to do table look-ups in silicon at a 10Gbps line speed. 5. Note tha Cisco does NOT have 10Gbps SONET or SDH transmission equipment suitable for long-haul networks. This has been the sweet spot where NT has made some much money. It also does not appear as though Cisco even intends to offer such gear. This would also preclude offering ultra-long haul solutions unless it buys Corvis. 6. Cisco also does not have all-optical switching or mesh-based network restoration products. It could buy Sycamore, or Ciena.