SAN JOSE, Calif., October 2, 2001 - Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: CSCO), the worldwide leader in networking for the Internet, today announced a series of new products that reinforces its leadership in the service provider market and builds upon its market and technology leadership in high-end IP routing. Cisco is accelerating the evolution of the Internet with two important new extensions to the Cisco 12000 Series and the industry's first purpose-built metro IP access router, the Cisco 10720 Internet Router.

The Cisco 10720 Internet Router is the only metro IP access platform to integrate high-speed Ethernet, IP-optimized optical transport, and rich IP routing and services for simple, scalable, and reliable IP networks. Extensions to the Cisco 12000 Series are: new edge-optimized line cards, based on the new Cisco 12000 Series IP Services Engine, that deliver high-speed services at the edge and the Cisco 12404 Internet Router, the industry's smallest footprint 10Gbps router. With over 20,000 units installed, the Cisco 12000 Series Internet Routers are the most broadly deployed high-end IP routers in the industry and today. With these new additions, the Cisco 12000 Series now spans large to small points of presence (POPs), from the backbone to the network edge, allowing service providers maximum flexibility in deploying high performance, high value 10Gbps IP networks.

By providing solutions that meet the broad range of service provider requirements for expanding market reach, creating revenue opportunity, and delivering 10Gbps connectivity throughout the network, these new products enable service providers to move up the value chain to offer profitable high-bandwidth, value-added services while lowering operational costs by simplifying network operations, architectures, and service delivery .

Cisco is extending the Cisco 12000 Series into the high-speed service provider edge, with the revolutionary new Cisco 12000 Series IP Services Engine (ISE) that will enable the deployment of high-speed, profitable IP services. The Cisco 12000 Series ISE brings the industry's premier IP backbone router to the high-speed edge, revolutionizing the market by combining distributed processing with line rate adaptive network processing in a high capacity 10Gbps routing platform. With six new line cards based on the Cisco 12000 Series ISE, the Cisco 12000 Series now delivers the highest backbone and edge performance with unprecedented flexibility, enabling service providers to deploy new value-added services such as voice and video that will expand their markets and profitability.

"At Sprint we've come to expect the highest level of innovation and technology leadership from Cisco," said Chris Clark, vice president, Sprint IP Product Management.

"The ISE cards can assist Sprint in delivering value-added services to our customers without increasing complexity or compromising performance and density. With the ability to turn on multiple features simultaneously, Sprint can offer customers a wide array of profitable services."

Cisco is enabling the continued growth of 10Gbps networks with the only portfolio of 10Gbps platforms in the industry. The new Cisco 12404 Internet Router is the smallest footprint 10Gbps Internet router in the industry, delivering high bandwidth, reliability, and scalability in the most efficient 10Gbps platform available. Cisco's complete portfolio of four 10Gbps products provides customers unprecedented flexibility in deploying 10Gbps throughout their networks, in small to large POPs for backbone or edge applications. Cisco 12400 Internet Router products include:

• Cisco 12416 - highest capacity router, with two-fold improvement in POP scalability vs. nearest competitor
• Cisco 12410 - the highest capacity and performance ½-rack system in the industry
• Cisco 12406 - only ¼-rack 10Gbps router in the industry with five times the performance of the nearest competitor
• Cisco 12404 - at 1/8 of a rack, the smallest footprint 10Gbps router in the industry with the highest switching capacity per rack unit

"Cisco's built-in investment protection is a strong competitive differentiator. By continuing to offer the most innovative and highest performance products it preserves customers' investments and commitment to the 12000 Series. This is clearly exemplified by the new ISE-based line cards which can be used in any 12000 chassis," said Deb Mielke, principal, Treillage Network Strategies, Inc. "The Cisco 12400 family routers are the only 10Gbps routers to deliver simple, low-cost field upgrades to higher switching capacities, enabling customers to reduce their capital and operational expenses. The opportunity to shift these savings into expanding their networks and services is critical to their business."

Cisco is pioneering the Metro IP market by extending the service provider IP edge into the metro market. The new Cisco 10720 Internet Router is the only Internet-class metro access platform to integrate IP-optimized optical transport, utilizing Cisco's market-leading resilient packet ring technology, Dynamic Packet Transport (DPT), for full IP routing and services, and intelligent Ethernet subscriber interfaces for simple, scalable and reliable networks. The Cisco 10720 enables customers to offer Metro Ethernet services in multi-tenant buildings while providing carrier-class reliability and IP intelligence, bringing profitable IP services and content even closer to the end user. Using adaptive network processing, the Cisco 10720 delivers high-speed Internet access, transparent LAN services and profit generating IP services such as IP virtual private networks (VPNs), premium transit services, and real-time IP services such as voice over IP (VoIP).

Clark continued, "Building a network can be complicated, but at Sprint we look for ways to reduce infrastructure complexities, and streamline inefficiencies for customers. We have found the Cisco 10720 Internet Router to be a cost-effective access router for delivering IP services and high-speed Ethernet connectivity over an OC-48 resilient packet ring network."

"As the Internet evolves, Cisco's customers face new challenges in scaling and adapting their networks in the services point of presence and the metro and providing greater value by offering new, profitable services. Now, with these new products, services such as transparent LAN, virtual private networks, voice over IP and integrated billing capabilities can be offered at high speeds without compromising our customer's network performance or capacity," said Roland Acra, group vice president at Cisco. "These products are unique to the industry because for the first time, providers can deploy backbone and rich IP edge services in a single, integrated solution based on the Cisco 12000 Series."

About Next Generation Internet Routing

Cisco's next generation Internet routers, the full series of Cisco 7400, 7300, 7600, 10000, 10700 and the 12000, are a family of multimillion packets-per-second (pps) IP platforms for creating service-enabled Internets. These products deliver the highest performance, availability, operational efficiency, and greatest level of service for increasing service provider profitability and reducing operational costs across a variety of applications including: broadband aggregation, managed CPE, leased line aggregation, metro IP, Internet Data Centers, edge and backbone.