Hangzhou, P.R. China, January 13, 2002 - Zhejiang Telecom, a subsidiary of China Telecom, announced today that it will deploy Cisco Systems Metro Ethernet Switching products throughout Zhejiang province in eastern China. The enhanced bandwidth and diversified services are anticipated to increase revenue as a result of the penetration of dial-up, broadband, and voice services available to businesses and consumers. The Cisco Catalyst® 6509, Catalyst 4006 and Catalyst 3550 switches have been selected to further expand the province-wide backbone network.
A wholly owned subsidiary of China Telecom and a major carrier in Zhejiang province, Zhejiang Telecom reported revenue of USD 1.3 billion with a subscriber base of 11 million in 2001. Zhejiang Telecom views data service as a revenue generator and has been building up broadband IP networks across the province since June 2001. Cisco was previously contracted to provide networking solutions for the first stage of implementation, which included the major cities in Zhejiang's Telecom's service area.
Added Mr. John Ng, Vice President of Cisco Systems China, "We enjoy a strong relationship with Zhejiang Telecom. The infrastructure and expertise that Cisco provides can allow them to expand broadband access and value-added services for their customers, and help them to achieve key business objectives such as reducing capital and operating expenses and increasing return on investment. Cisco products are widely deployed in carrier-grade networks worldwide and are proven in field operations. In the build-out of IP networks, our account team also offers high-level expertise to help decision makers balance practical demands and future development."
The second stage of the broadband IP network expansion covers 10 major cities in Zhejiang province, including Hangzhou, Ningbo, Wenzhou, Jinhua, Shaoxing, Huzhou, Quzhou, Taizhou, Zhoushan and Lishui. Zhejiang Telecom will use the Cisco Catalyst 6509, Catalyst 4006, and Catalyst 3550 switches.
Known for its capability to deliver high-performance, multi-layer switching solutions, the Catalyst 6509 will be deployed as a MAN (Metropolitan Area Network) core switch. By combining superior control-plane and packet-forwarding scalability with a rich set of intelligent services, the Catalyst 6509 delivers the foundation for next generation networking solutions, such as converged voice, video, data and e-commerce services. The Catalyst 6509 supports optical wide-area network interfaces of OC-3 to OC-48, features superior processors that can be upgraded via software and that support Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS), and has deep packet buffers that address WAN jitter and manage bandwidth fluctuations.
The Cisco Catalyst 4006 Switch delivers cost-effective building aggregation for the MAN. With the recently introduced Supervisor 4, the modular 6-slot chassis offers scalable switching with up to 240 ports of 10/100/1000 Ethernet on copper or fiber, multi-protocol Layer 3 IP, IPX and IP multicast switching. The Cisco Catalyst 3550 Intelligent Ethernet Switch is a powerful, fixed-configuration, multilayer switch that extends intelligence to the metro access edge, enabling service breadth, availability, security, and manageability.
The deployment of end-to-end Cisco solutions maximizes the management capability of Cisco IOS® Software and enhances network intelligence. Without appropriate prioritization, burgeoning multimedia applications such as multicast, video-conferencing, and video on demand are draining bandwidth despite large investments in network infrastructure. Cisco IOS Software offers a powerful quality-of-service (QoS) function, offered by CiscoAssure, which can identify user applications - such as voice, enterprise resource planning (ERP), or multicast - and classify traffic with the appropriate priority level, ensuring critical packets are processed and transmitted first.
