July 18, 2005 Munich, Germany and San Jose, CA -- Cisco today announced that T-Com, the fixed-network unit of Deutsche Telekom, is extending its Cisco IP-Next-Generation Network (IP-NGN), based on the company's IP/multi-protocol label switching (IP/MPLS) technology, through a planned upgrade of existing Cisco 12000 Series routers.
The carrier says the upgrade will help provide its customers with access to carrier services based on IP/MPLS. In the upgrade, the company's IP Service Engines (ISE) interface cards are being deployed to its 12000 Series routers across the network's edge layer. The company says the upgrade will help the carrier to reduce its operational expenditures through simplification of its network architecture, and provide a platform for the deployment of Cisco's IOS XR operating system.
The carrier says that all of its points of presence (PoPs) offer its customers a combination of high-speed leased line and DSL connections, based on ATM as well as Ethernet access, together with tiered class-of-service offerings and strong service-level guarantees to support carrier and business customers. The IP/MPLS technology with tiered quality-of-service capabilities supports advanced communications and business applications including IP telephony and live multimedia content delivery over the Internet. The network upgrade also provides the capability to activate authentication and accounting services for large numbers of customers.
In addition, through the upgrade, the carrier says it can continue to provide best-in-class services to international organizations through the transparent integration of multiple customer networks, many of which are the result of customer merger and acquisition. The carrier says its collaboration with the company on IP/MPLS inter-provider platforms will help to streamline processes such as billing and provisioning of services across multiple networks, and reduce operational costs.
By consolidating several edge functions such as IP/MPLS and Ethernet into existing platforms, the company says its 12000 Series is helping the carrier to roll out reliable QoS-based value-added service offerings for carriers and business customers, and to improve network performance.
"T-Com's Cisco 12000 Series upgrades are a prime example of how we're helping our service provider customers to protect their existing investment in Cisco routing technology, as well as helping find new service creation opportunities," comments Geraint Anderson, VP of Cisco's EMEA service provider wireline business unit. "By migrating network edge functions to the Cisco 12000 Series, T-Com will be able to reduce operational expenditure by simplifying network architectures, and advance its network foundation as it evolves to an IP Next-Generation network core infrastructure."