SAN JOSE, Calif. -- March 25, 1998 -- Road Runner and Cisco Systems announced today that they have begun deployment of a next-generation broadband services infrastructure in Time Warner Cable's upstate New York service area.
Based on broadband optical and digital networking technologies from Cisco Systems, the new infrastructure will enable Road Runner to use its fiber facilities and support high-bandwidth functionality and reliability for new broadband services such as its Road Runner online offering. The new infrastructure significantly increases Road Runner's economies of scale while enabling the delivery of mission-critical services from a single, super head end and regional data center.
High Speed and Scalability Pave Way to Subscribers' Doors
Cable companies are looking to add digital information, entertainment and communication services to their traditional broadcast television and tiered programming offerings to retain their customer base and attract new subscribers. Facing increased competition, the cable industry is adopting digital infrastructures to deploy these enhanced services. Furthermore, growth in digital data traffic volume significantly affects cable architectural planning. Cable providers must be able to offer new services to personal computer users today while ensuring that next-generation services can be delivered via emerging home appliances without major network reconstruction. To accelerate time to market while reducing infrastructure complexity, cable providers are increasingly turning to Cisco's end-to-end solutions to help them meet these networking challenges in a timely fashion.
"Cisco is uniquely able to offer us a wide range of standards-based solutions that integrate with our service offering," said Mario Vecchi, chief technology officer of the Road Runner Group. "Cisco's cable and high-speed switching products along with technologies like Optical Packet on SONET will help us to significantly reduce time to market for new residential and business customer service solutions."
Carrier-Class Products, Standards-Based Implementation
Cable architectures require extremely low-delay, high-quality-of-service, secure networking capabilities with support for broadband multicast and service delivery. Road Runner's broadband network already employs long-reach fiber-optic technologies to bridge the long distances between head end and hub facilities. The new Road Runner network is designed to deliver OC-12 (622 Mbps) speeds today while enabling rapid scaling to OC-48 (2.4 Gbps) speeds and beyond.
Key components of the new Road Runner network include the Cisco 12008 Gigabit Switch Router (GSR) and the Cisco 7500 series router. The Cisco 12008 GSR is a compact, NEBS-compliant, carrier-class product with high-availability features, including hot-swap, key component redundancy and SONET/SDH automatic protection switching. The award-winning Cisco 12008 is a member of the Cisco 12000 series of high-end routers, which delivers scalable switching bandwidth ranging from 5 to 60 Gbps, and wire-rate Layer 3 packet switching to meet the specific requirements of broadband transmission. The Cisco 7500 series is Cisco's premier high-end platform of multiprotocol routers, which combines proven software technology with reliability, availability, serviceability and performance features to meet the requirements of today's mission-critical networks.
Road Runner is evaluating the recently announced Cisco uBR7246 universal broadband router, a next-generation data-, voice- and video-capable Multimedia Cable Network System (MCNS) cable modem termination system (CMTS) head end device. The Cisco uBR7246 fully integrates service provider-class routing and management features. It provides cable operators with benefits over existing bridging solutions such as increased network security, bandwidth efficiency and centralized management and control.
Vecchi continued, "In addition to the high-speed technology required for delivering compelling multimedia services, all Cisco products are Cisco IOS software-based, greatly simplifying our network management and provisioning and eliminating costly, time-consuming multiplatform training."
"As cable companies race to stake out competitive positions in this new industry market, they increasingly are turning to Cisco for industry-leading cable solutions supported by Cisco's best-in-class training, support, consulting and technical expertise," said Paul D. Bosco, general manager of Cisco's Cable Products and Solutions team. "By teaming with Cisco, cable providers are able to offer new, differentiated services, including high-speed Internet access, streaming video, secure data services and virtual private networks (VPNs), thereby increasing their profitability and market share."
About Road Runner
Road Runner is a Time Warner company, and is available to more than 2,000,000 homes in 17 cities and counties serving over 35,000 customers. Time Warner Cable owns and manages the world's most advanced, best-clustered cable television operations, with 80 percent of its 12.4 million customers in systems of 100,000 subscribers or more. The Road Runner character is a trademark and copyright of Warner Bros., a division of Time Warner Entertainment Company, L.P.
Cisco Systems
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