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To: The Phoenix who wrote (23553)	3/9/1999 5:06:00 PM
From: RetiredNow	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 77400

OK. I did a little research on all this stuff. It looks as if what's happening is that Layer 3 switches are becoming more popular not just because they are faster than routers, but because they are substantially cheaper and because of protocols like RSVP. Apparently, RSVP is to switches what QoS is to ATM. So with RSVP mission critical packets (like voice or video) will arrive in a timely fashion because RSVP allocates and guarantees bandwidth between the sender and receiver. So now switches can do alot of the stuff routers can. Problem is that switches can't route over WANs. So L3 switches are getting pushed closer to the desktop (with hubs between them and the desktop) and routers are getting pushed out to the edge between the LANs and WANs. I'm not trying to explain anything to anyone. It's more like I am thinking out loud and hoping someone will correct me if I am wrong. So my question is, Gary, does this mean that router sales will suffer as L3-4 switches proliferate? If so, that would mean Cisco margins coming down. Am I right? TIA.