12/17/2007 -- Nearly four years on, Cisco Systems Inc.'s Carrier Routing System (CRS-1) is really starting to make some headway into large service provider accounts.

Cisco last week announced that AT&T has selected CRS-1 as the core platform for its global IP/MPLS backbone network. AT&T officials cited a couple of signature CRS-1 attributes -- namely, high availability and scalability -- as decisive factors in its selection of Cisco's next-generation routing platform.

The upshot, according to experts, is that nearly four years after its introduction in 2004, Cisco's next-generation routing system has more or less gone mainstream.

"[T]he CRS-1 will be used to deliver voice, video, data and mobility services to residential and business customers worldwide, including services such as DSL and U-verse," said Glen Hunt, principal analyst for carrier infrastructure with market watcher Current Analysis. "AT&T has over a dozen core sites that will leverage the various models of the CRS-1, ranging from the single-chassis to the multi-chassis version depending upon the throughput requirements of the various PoPs."

It's another important milestone for the CRS-1, Hunt continued.

"[T]he selection points to another service provider that has decided to deploy the CRS-1 to meet its IP core routing needs. Although certainly not a greenfield network, AT&T needed to select a new supplier for its core routing needs, especially given Avici Systems' decision to withdraw from the space to focus on its Soapstone initiatives," he said. "The AT&T contract represents a significant win with a Tier 1 provider that is experiencing significant growth in IP service delivery. The selection comes after a comprehensive test and trial period to validate the high-availability and scalability features offered by the platform."

More important still, according to Hunt, is the fact that AT&T's requirements exceeded those of competitive solutions. In this respect, he observed, its network was the very kind of cutting-edge deployment for which the CRS-1 was built.

"AT&T was one of several service providers whose capacity requirements exceeded the capabilities of a single chassis, indicating that the scalability of the CRS-1 will be a significant factor that could be leveraged to support the growing throughput needs, which according to an AT&T spokesperson have nearly doubled this past year," Hunt said. --Stephen Swoyer