Cisco Systems, the world's biggest maker of computer networking equipment, on Tuesday displayed a super-router that the company says is powerful enough to download all the books in the Library of Congress in one second.
The Silicon Valley company, which has a 12-building campus in Research Triangle Park where it employs 4,300, had hyped its announcement ahead of time by saying it would forever change the Internet.
Cisco chief executive officer John Chambers said Tuesday on a webcast that the CRS-3 router is 12 times faster than the fastest router made by its competitors. He also said Cisco's router will revolutionize entertainment, education and health care by making video as instantaneous as e-mail.
Cisco has invested $1.6 billion in the new router and earlier models in the series. The company expects the router to boost the company's sales to phone carriers, Internet service providers and data centers.
"Video is the killer app," Chambers said. "Video brings the Internet to life."
Video also requires more bandwidth than voice or data, creating demand forCisco's products. Indeed, as more people watch movies and YouTube clips and play games online - and expect to do those things on mobile devices - carriers must meet their demands for faster access.
The new router also plays into Cisco's increasingly consumer-focused business model.
Through a series of acquisitions of technology startups, Cisco is transforming itself into a company that supplies consumer products, such as TV set-top boxes, video cameras and other entertainment gadgetry.
The new router would link those technologies at work and at home with lightning speed, Chambers said.
The CRS-3 router is being field-tested by AT&T in Florida and Louisiana. If the tests go as planned, Cisco will begin selling it in the third quarter. The price will start at $90,000 in this country.
Still, Cisco's news was met with a yawn by some technology analysts who were expecting a blockbuster breakthrough from a global technology company that's flexing its muscle in new areas such as utility power grids and consumer electronics.
"The technical specs are through the roof," acknowledged Zeus Kerravala, a technology analyst with the Yankee Group in Boston. "But they overplayed it. All the hype around it took away from what it was."
Router sales account for 17 percent of Cisco's sales. Analysts said it's just a matter of time until competitors introduce their own super-fast routers, forcing Cisco to increase speeds again, in a familiar cycle that has been played out for years.
"We had envisioned today's announcement including a broader, more grandiose change to network architectures," Morgan Keegan analyst Simon Leopold wrote in a research note to clients. "Maybe we'll hear more on its next big announcement."
