ZTE raises the stakes in the core router market

Stuart Corner
Sunday, 25 October 2009 03:17

Business IT - Technology

ZTE announced the ZXR10 T8000 Cluster Core Router last month claiming the largest switching capacity in the world, and saying it aims to achieve revenues in excess of $US10 billion revenue from the high-end router market over the next three years.

According to ZTE, the ZXR10 T8000 maximally provides 2048 40G interfaces, 1024 100G interfaces, and of up to 200Tbps switching capacity, which means each ZXR10 T8000 can support over one million users simultaneously with high-speed network access.

Significantly the core chipsets are homegrown. ZTE says: "The semiconductor chips at the heart of the ZTR10 T8000 were developed independently by ZTE and include three critical breakthroughs in core chip technology: advanced high-speed routing forwarding technology, large-capacity packet switching technology, and complex traffic management technology. The ZXR10 T8000 is the first high-end router in China to use proprietary chip technology."


According to Ovum, "ZTE's T8000 will compete with Cisco's CRS-1, Juniper's T series and Huawei's NE5000. While datasheet comparisons show the T8000 in a favourable light, comparative testing data is not yet available...[However] the T8000's spec sheet indicates a unique and advanced product...Cisco's five-year-old CRS-1 maxes out at 92Tbps and Juniper's T1600 with TX Plus Matrix at 25.6Tbps, compared to a fully equipped T8000 cluster at 200Tbps.

"Similar to Juniper's core router design, ZTE uses clustering to interconnect chassis which helps keeps initial deployment costs low while extending service life, avoiding the 'today's core is tomorrow's edge' issue as bandwidth grows. ZTE also claims substantial energy savings from intelligent power supplies and fans that respond to traffic conditions. "

Ovum concludes that "ZTE is moving beyond its former market positioning of 'high value – good enough' to 'biggest and fastest', and competing vendors will need to accelerate product cycles accordingly."

On the downside, Ovum says ZTE lacks the marketing muscle to compete effectively with Juniper and Cisco across the global market "Competitive technology at an attractive price with financing support creates a compelling value proposition, [but] what use is a better product if nobody knows about it?"

And it adds: "Trust is also a concern as visibility into ZTE's corporate structure and primary Chinese market are limited, and customer references for new products frequently come first out of China. ZTE's T8000 will need a few years of field deployment, both to verify the hardware and software itself and also to prove ZTE's ability to provide rapid-response customer support in this high-stakes segment where reliability is crucial."