January 09, 2001, 2:39 PM — Cisco has pulled up the high end and pushed down the low end of its broadband aggregation gear that lets service providers support DSL, cable modem and other high-speed access services.
The company has doubled the processing power in the NRP2 processor card for its 6400 broadband concentrator. With software efficiencies, the card can support 16,000 simultaneous customer sessions -- eight times the number the NRP1 card supported. A fully loaded 6400 chassis can handle six cards, giving a single box the capacity for 96,000 customer sessions.
At the same time, Cisco is porting software to its venerable 7200 router that will enable it to handle up to 4,000 customer broadband sessions.
The NRP2 cards cost $24,000 and will be available in November.
