21st June 2004 - Despite sales revenues remaining relatively flat from 2002 to 2003, the service provider edge and core router markets will see substantial growth in 2004, and over the next five years, reports In-Stat/MDR (http://www.instat.com). The high-tech market research firm finds that this success will be driven by the ability of these products to meet the demands of service providers who, as they increase their CapEx spending with improved economic conditions, are looking to invest in equipment that will allow them to offer new, profitable services, as well as enable them to optimize the capital and operational costs of their network infrastructure.

The new generations of edge routers offer a range of services beyond traditional Internet access. These include IP VPN, Ethernet, broadband subscriber management, and security services. Beyond such new services, multiservice edge routers are enabling the consolidation of multiple types of traffic over a converged MPLS core network. These products will offer the opportunity for service providers to consolidate multiple edge boxes into a single box in the future. In the core of the network, most service providers are planning to, eventually, evolve from multiple networks for data, voice, and video services to a converged MPLS core network architecture. Core router vendors are developing products that will provide the core backbone networking for these MPLS common core networks.

In-Stat/MDR also found that:

• Cisco remained the dominant vendor in edge and core router sales in 2003. Juniper was the second-leading vendor in both markets.
  
  
• In 2003, worldwide edge router sales revenues were about $1.6 billion, and worldwide core router sales revenues were about $1.47 billion.

This Market Alert is drawn from the In-Stat/MDR report, "The Next Generation of Service Provider Edge and Core Routers" (#IN0401352WN), which provides a comprehensive analysis of the service provider edge and core router markets, and a description of the next generation of routers that are being introduced by vendors to capture new opportunities in these markets. The report reviews the unit shipments and sales revenues of the leading vendors in each market in 2003, and compares them to the previous year. Key trends that will shape the future edge and core router markets are highlighted. Five-year forecasts of worldwide edge and core router unit shipments and sales revenues are presented. The report provides detailed profiles and competitive analysis of the leading and key start-up vendors of edge and core routers. The edge router vendors that are profiled are: Cisco, Juniper, Redback, Riverstone, Alcatel, Laurel Networks, Nortel, and Tellabs. The core router vendors that are profiled are: Cisco, Juniper, Avici, Marconi, Chiaro Networks, and Procket Networks.

Back to News Reports