AARNet disconnects last Procket router

Stuart Corner
Friday, 09 December 2005 09:07

Business IT - Networking

AARNet has decommissioned the last Procket router in its core network replacing it with a Juniper M320.

The changeover marks the end of a saga that began in early 2004 when AARNet acquired capacity on the newly-rescued bankrupt Nextgen network and announce that it had selected start-up Procket Networks rather than established players like Cisco and Juniper to supply the core routers for a backbone network on its Nextgen capacity. In all 12 were to be installed

AARNet said it had selected Procket routers "despite strong competition from the traditional high-end backbone router vendors, Cisco and Juniper". Business development manager, Mary Fleming said AARNet was confident that the Procket gear would support 40Gbps transmission speeds "sooner rather than later" and that "future development of the Procket equipment will support even higher speeds".

This confidence was sadly misplaced. Shortly afterwards Cisco bought Procket and promptly killed of its products which were in direct competition to Cisco's own.

However Cisco failed to persuade AARNet to migrate to its new flagship core router, the CRS-1. Earlier this year, AARNet announce that it had chosen Juniper