Marconi confirms $33 million sale of BXR-48000 multiservice switching platforms to support critical U.S. Government applications
June 8 2004 Pittsburgh, PA-- Marconi Corporation plc through its U.S. subsidiary, Marconi Communications Federal, Inc., today confirmed that the U.S. Federal government recently purchased and has taken delivery of a number of BXR-48000s, a multiservice switching platform developed by Marconi's Pittsburgh-based Broadband Routing & Switching (BBRS) business. During Marconi's fourth quarter ended March 31, 2004 Marconi shipped the bulk of an order valued at about $33 million, including installation services, for BXR-48000s. These sales were the major driver of the increase in BBRS sales during that period, as disclosed in Marconi's Preliminary Results statement made on May 18, 2004.
This contract follows a sale of BXR-48000s to the U.S. Federal government announced in September 2003 that was valued at about $9 million for hardware and services.
The BXR-48000 is the only platform that meets the U.S. Federal government's simultaneous requirements for massive data transmission capacity, high-speed encryption support and the broad range of legacy and packet protocols required for applications that enable critical front-line defense, homeland security and intelligence analysis, according to Marconi. These unique capabilities have helped Marconi increase its base of networking equipment within the U.S. government to more than $1.5 billion and have helped the Federal government achieve some of its broadband network expansion goals.
"Network operators in the government sector have long trusted Marconi to support their most crucial data transmission requirements, yet do so within the framework of economically sensible, commercially available technology," said Gerry Kolosvary, president, Marconi Communications Federal. "Networks that defend nations and their citizens must meet the twin test of being both a solid long-term financial investment and a safe technological choice capable of handling current and anticipated applications. Marconi's reliable, predictable, scalable and secure networking equipment, and our professional services can deliver today the convergence of voice, video and data over a single network infrastructure. This is the essence of military-grade enterprise networking."
With up to 480 Gbits/sec of full-duplex, deterministically non-blocking throughput (960-Gbit/sec simplex) and a uniquely flexible architecture that transports packets and cells in their native format, the BXR-48000 is a versatile multiservice switching platform. The BXR-48000's design is optimized to simultaneously handle ATM switching, MPLS switching, and IP routing, while maintaining network predictability and high performance.