infrastructure solutions: Bargain Boxes

ADTRAN, VINA Challenge Cisco in Low-Cost Router Market

"These products will appeal to service providers because they just want to put the cheapest box out there so they can increase margins," says Zeus Kerravala, vice president of The Yankee Group.

"Cisco stuff is certainly pretty high-priced," he adds. "They rarely have the cheapest product."

ADTRAN last month joined the low-cost router market, announcing two access routers for branch office applications. The company is expanding into the router market with its NetVanta 3000 series of products because ADTRAN customers, in a move to reduce their capital expenditures, have asked for alternative, lower-cost router solutions from established vendors, explain Tim Saunders, vice president of product management for ADTRAN, and Rob Snyder, marketing manager for ADTRAN's enterprise networking division.

The NetVanta 3000 series delivers a low-cost alternative to the venerable Cisco Systems Inc. 1700 router. Snyder says ADTRAN's 3200 lists for just $695 while Cisco's 1700 lists for $1,195.

There are two products in the NetVanta 3000 series.

The 3200 is a standalone unit that comes in a plastic housing and includes LEDs on the front that provide information about WAN and LAN circuit status. It has one modular slot and a LAN 10/100 Ethernet port. The 3205 is the same device in terms of features and functionality, but comes in a metal enclosure and is one rack unit high.

The single slot in both devices accepts a network interface module supporting 56kpbs, T1/fractional T1, T1/fractional T1 with a port to interface with a PBX, a serial module, S.HDSL or E1. ADTRAN also offers a dial backup module, which plugs on to the network interface module and then slides into the chassis, to offer analog modem or ISDN BRI. Both devices support frame relay, PPP, and static and RIP 1 and 2. The ADTRAN routers are interoperable with other vendors' larger routers.

Snyder says that unlike the Cisco 1700, ADTRAN's new routers offer stateful inspection firewall. While Cisco offers VPN functionality in its 1700 and ADTRAN's NetVanta 3000 series doesn't, customers can couple ADTRAN's routers with its 2000 VPN firewall series products, which start at $495, to offer VPN functionality, he adds. The ADTRAN products will include a five-year standard warranty, which Snyder says trumps the competition. The company also offers free 24x7 phone support and the option of added installation and maintenance support for an additional fee on the routers.

The new routers are targeted at three applications:

• Voice transport to a local PBX via a frame relay wide area connection;

• ISDN BRI dial back up to branch offices if the frame relay link to the corporate site becomes unavailable; and

• Secure Internet access from 56kpbs to T1.

While trying to take router business from Cisco seems a tough sell, Saunders says ADTRAN always enters markets with the goal of being the market leader. To make that happen, ADTRAN says it is trying to make it as easy as possible for carriers and enterprises to make the leap. Snyder explains that the new routers offer a command line interface for configuration that "mimics the de facto standard used by Cisco routers," says Snyder. That way people who are familiar with the Cisco interface don't need new training, notes Saunders. At ADTRAN's Web site visitors can see a 3D model of the routers and modules, view command line interface examples and can even "drive a router" using the command line interfaces, says Snyder.

Saunders and Snyder add that ADTRAN is not really a newcomer to the router space. The company has an installed base of 75,000 products with router functionality. ADTRAN's integrated access devices make up the single biggest product category in that example.

ADTRAN long has been selling CSU/DSUs that sit in front of routers, so the company already has the distribution channels in place to sell its new routers, says Snyder. ADTRAN made the routers available to its value-added resellers, which distribute its products to enterprise customers, in June/July. The company, which sells direct to service providers, is in router trials with carriers.

As for VINA, the company in July announced the availability of the VINA eRouter-200, a T1-based router for SMBs that costs less than $1,000. Tom Barsi, vice president of business development, says its carrier customers were also asking for low-cost routers that could help them reach SMBs more cost effectively.

Beyond offering a low-cost alternative, however, Bruce Todd, VINA marketing director, says his company's product has better performance than competing products. Todd says the company plans to soon add more functionality to its box. VPN functionality is slated for 2003 availability; VINA is also is working to add voice support on the router through a fractional T1 interface to connect to branch PBXs, says Todd.

As for performance, in a recent test by independent test lab The Tolly Group, VINA's eRouter outperformed products from ADTRAN, Cisco and Netopia, demonstrating superior throughput with zero packet loss, according to VINA. "None of the other vendors delivered full line rate performance, but our [box] did," says Todd. He adds Allegiance Telecom Inc., Birch Telecom and NuVox Communications Inc. each beta tested the product, which is now generally available.

However, Joe Ammirato, Cisco's senior director marketing for the access technology group, dismisses the new products from ADTRAN and VINA as "low cost and low value."

"We always evaluate newcomers, but there's no need to react [in this case] because they're not doing anything differently than we have today. In fact, it's a small subset of what we do," says Ammirato.

The new competitors have basic serial and T1 capability, he says, but from an end user standpoint offer very little future growth, very little security, no VPN and no intrusion detection, he says. "If you want to prioritize with QoS, none of that exists," he says. "It's a limited box for a limited portion of the market."

Cisco by its own account holds 90 percent of the low-end router market with its 1600, 1700 and lower-end 2600 series products.

Kerravala of The Yankee Group predicts Cisco will keep the lion's share of the low-cost router market. "But if ADTRAN can get even a couple points away from Cisco" that will be significant, he says. ADTRAN will have hard time differentiating itself from Cisco, so initially the company will have to do it based on price, he says. Kerravala adds it's likely ADTRAN will stay out of advanced features and multiprotocol functionality.

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