The telecommunications and networking equipment maker Alcatel-Lucent is counting on the introduction of the company's first internet core router in the market to help drive its business expansion on the mainland over the next few years.
The Paris-based company is entering the U$4 billion global market for internet core routers today with the global launch of its 7950 XRS (extensible routing system), which will compete against products from market leaders Cisco Systems and Juniper Networks.
An internet core router serves as the central hub of a telecommunications carrier's data network. It controls the flow of network data in cities, across so-called national network backbones, and the global internet.
Alcatel-Lucent's chief executive, Ben Verwaayen, said the company's advanced new router 'will enable our customers to optimise the delivery of internet video, gaming, photo-sharing and data-hungry business applications'.
Mark Koh, senior industry analyst at Frost & Sullivan, said opportunities to replace older generations of these cabinet-sized systems on the mainland and in Hong Kong had increased because of greater data usage on broadband internet connections, smartphones, media tablets and so-called cloud computing applications.
Alcatel-Lucent estimates its product, which took more than three years to develop, will deliver a five-fold improvement in capacity and performance compared with typical IP core routers. Rick Clark, vice-president for Asia-Pacific marketing strategy at Alcatel-Lucent, said: 'Effectively, what Cisco will do in five cabinets, this machine will do in one.'