Summary
1. Cisco Systems cannot resist manufacturing news around the time of a big telecom show. 2. Despite not really being a player in the public wireless sector, it strives to take advantage of any technology receiving a lot of attention. 3. However, Verizon Wireless is not doing anything different than it has been planning for a while with Cisco’s routers.
Analysis
The “Verizon spokesperson” discusses the ASRs in a matter of fact way. “We use the ASR 9000 for aggregating our cell site routers...It serves the function of an MLS (multi-layer switch) and a router.” There is nothing remarkable about this situation. It has been in the cards for quite some time that Verizon was going to follow up its CRS-1 deployments with the ASR 9000 routers. But with all of the attention given to the transition from 3G to 4G, Cisco cannot resist taking advantage of the press focus in this area.
It is somewhat ironic how much Cisco is bending over backwards to talk about its business with Verizon given the RBOC’s kind of love/hate relationship with the vendor. The attitude at Verizon appears to essentially be that it is willing to give up to $100 million to Cisco a year. But it seems that the carrier will strive to avoid giving one penny extra.
