MENLO PARK, Calif., Feb. 3, 1993 -- Cisco Systems, Inc., today shipped the first two production units of its new Cisco 7000multiprotocol router to Unitel Communications Inc., of Toronto.

Unitel is a Canadian telecommunication-facilities-basedcarrier with digital fiber-optic and microwave networks. ImranBashir, Unitel's manager of systems integration, said, "Becausethe Cisco 7000 will be used in our network to handle mission-critical applications, we are particularly impressed by featuresthat support serviceability and availability. The new Cisco unitsoffer on-line insertion and removal (`hot swapping') of interfaceprocessors and feature dual power supplies that allowuninterrupted operation if one system fails."

The Cisco 7000, announced Jan. 19, has the highest aggregateIP forwarding rate ever measured at Harvard University's NetworkDevice Test Lab, a widely respected router test site. The unit'smeasured performance of 110,000 packets per second --approximately 50 percent greater than that of competing new-generation routers -- is expected to double over the next twoyears through the use of advanced silicon-switching technology.In addition, a future ATM (asynchronous transfer mode) interfacewill allow Cisco 7000s to form a router cluster with aggregatesystem performance of more than one million packets per second.

Cisco Systems, Inc., is the leading worldwide supplier ofhigh-performance, multimedia and multiprotocol internetworkingproducts, including routers, bridges, communication servers androuter management software. Cisco technology can be used to buildenterprise-wide networks linking an unlimited number ofgeographically dispersed LANs, WANs, and IBM SNA internetworks.In the United States, Cisco is traded over the counter under theNASDAQ symbol CSCO.