Ericsson Announces Multiprotocol Label Switching Solutions.

STOCKHOLM, Sweden--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 16, 1998--

Family of MPLS-capable label switching routers drives WAN IP switching to the Next Generation

Ericsson has today announced its Label Switching Routers, the AXI 531 and AXI 537, based on the emerging Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) standard. The AXI product family of Label Switching Routers will enable all types of IP service providers and large enterprises to grow their IP networks to 10-20 times their current scale, while providing non-stop availability, and offering advanced, differentiated IP services and guaranteed service level agreements.

With IP devices and users expected to expand to ten times their current number over the next five years, applications will continue to use more bandwidth, driving exponential bandwidth increase. At the same time, new, interactive real-time voice and video applications making their entrance onto the Internet and corporate intranets require solutions that offer more than the current best-effort datagram service. By merging carrier-class hardware and software with IP functionality, Ericsson's AXI 530 Label Switching Routers offer the performance, scalability, functionality and availability needed for these next generation network infrastructures.

The AXI 531 Label Switching Router is based on the same core technology used in the AXD 301 ATM switch, announced by Ericsson earlier this month. The AXI 531 is scalable from cost efficient 10Gbit/s and 20Gbit/s up to 160Gbit/s configurations. It will scale to a forwarding capacity of 160Gbit/s, equaling well over a hundred million packets per second - higher than any IP router or IP/WAN switching platform available today. Its core switching technology has been designed to scale to 2.5Tbps.

The AXI 531 initially supports configurations up to 128 155Mbit/s OC-3c/STM-1 or 32 622Mbit/s OC-12c/STM-4 connections. In its 160Gbit/s configuration the AXI 531 is scalable to 1024 OC-3c/STM-1 and or OC-12c/STM-4 connections with near linear performance, scaling also higher than any IP router or IP/WAN switching platform available today, offering best-in-class investment protection.

Cost effective and flexible, the AXI 537 can be used as a core solution in small to medium sized networks or, in combination with the AXI 531, as an edge solution for large networks. It will be available in three different models with switching capacities ranging from 1.6 to 6.4Gbit/s. The AXI 537 features a wide range of WAN interfaces, offering customers growth flexibility and investment protection as they evolve their networks.

"Our IP WAN strategy is to offer service providers and enterprises the best from both worlds - the universal, global connectivity and IP network services of the IP world, and the performance, scalability, availability and traffic engineering from the telecom world. With the AXI products, this is what we are able to offer to our customers," said Anders Igel, Executive Vice President of Ericsson and head of Infocom Systems.

The AXI 530 family will be available in Q4 1998. Ericsson is working with Bay Networks in a collaborative marketing effort, also announced today, to promote an integrated Ericsson/Bay Networks MPLS solution. Common field trials are scheduled to take place this summer. Ericsson, as well as Bay Networks, are active members of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) which is developing the MPLS protocol standard. The AXI 530 family will be fully software upgradeable to the final standard, which is expected to be ready by the end of 1998.

Ericsson's 100,000 employees are active in more than 130 countries. Their combined expertise in fixed and mobile networks, mobile phones and infocom systems makes Ericsson a world-leading supplier in telecommunications.

CONTACT: Ericsson

KATHY EGAN, PER BENGTSSON, 212/685-4030