NEC America, Inc. (NEC) announced the North American release of BlueFire, a family of enterprise IP routers and switches that implement IPv6 (Internet Protocol version 6) as well as IPv4 in hardware.
The BlueFire solutions provide NEC resellers with a LAN/WAN data offering that is integrated with NEC's IP telephony products to offer end-to-end IP converged solutions. BlueFire IP products constitute the data infrastructure elements of NEC's Enterprise Open Network (NEON), the company's architecture for converged networking that delivers the functionality, investment protection, proven reliability and performance of NEC's traditional voice platforms.
The BlueFire IX5010 is a MultiService IP switch router that allows the integration of IP voice and data, Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM), Frame Relay (FR), Packet Over SONET (POS) and Gigabit Ethernet. It can be used to provide access for various WAN transport media such as ATM and FR to Gigabit Ethernet LAN backbone or to consolidate legacy ATM and FR traffic for transport across a Gigabit Ethernet/IP WAN network.
The BlueFire 700 IP switch series offers Layer 2/Layer 3 switch capacities with scalable fabrics ranging from 4 Gbps to 96 Gbps. It can accommodate small workgroups, intermediate-to-large enterprises or corporate backbones. As with all BlueFire products, the BlueFire 700 IP switch series supports both Fast Ethernet (10/100) and Gigabit Ethernet data rates and processes packets at wire-speed. BlueFire products IPv6 and IPv4 Quality of Service (QoS), assuring that business-critical voice traffic is delivered with minimal delay and packet loss.
BlueFire routers and switches mark NEC's entry into the North American high-speed IP router and switch marketplace, although NEC already possessed a background in converged networking.
Resellers will be able to take advantage of technical and sales channel support programs that NEC has developed in over 15 years of PBX networking.
About NEC America Inc.:
NEC America, Inc., an affiliate of NEC Corporation (NASDAQ: NIPNY), develops, manufactures, and markets advanced communications products and software for public and private networks, including digital key telephone and PBX systems; ATM switching systems; facsimile equipment; wireless communications; fiber optic transmission systems; data communications products; digital microwave radio, satellite communications and network management systems. For more information, visit www.cng.nec.com.