News and Events

2004

JAPAN’S SECOND LARGEST ISP DEPLOYS FORCE10 E-SERIES TO BRING 10 GIGABIT ETHERNET ROUTING TO THEIR NETWORK

MILPITAS, Calif., March 17, 2004 — Force10 Networks today announced that BIGLOBE, NEC’s wholly-owned flagship Internet service provider, has deployed the E-Series to increase scalability and reliability while maintaining line-rate 10 Gigabit Ethernet performance. Force10’s E1200 provides BIGLOBE with the capacity to accommodate the flood of peer-to-peer traffic that has overwhelmed its current network as well as the predictable performance that will enable BIGLOBE to deliver new value-added services.

“As the traffic on our network increased, we needed an IP routing solution that could scale to meet demand and introduce a level of predictability that would allow us to deliver advanced new services,” Masafumi Kawaseki, manager of BIGLOBE’s Design and Operations Division. “The Force10 E1200 brings the scalability and performance we require, enabling us to fully upgrade our network and create a better user experience for our subscribers.”

BIGLOBE is upgrading its current 10 Gigabit Ethernet network with the Force10 E-Series to provide line-rate throughput with a high degree of reliability to its more than four million subscribers. The Force10 E1200 scales up to twenty-eight 10 Gigabit Ethernet ports and 336 Gigabit Ethernet ports, delivering the capacity BIGLOBE needs today and the room to expand as traffic increases in the future. The EtherScale architecture of the E-Series features built-in redundancy and hitless failover technologies that bring BIGLOBE the resiliency it requires to deliver services to an increasing number of subscribers.

“With the rapid adoption of fiber to the home and the increasing popularity of bandwidth-intensive peer-to-peer applications, the need for a fast and powerful technology such as 10 Gigabit Ethernet in Japan is here,” said Stephen Garrison, vice president of corporate marketing at Force10. “The Force10 E-Series delivers both the scalability and reliability that enables providers like BIGLOBE to expand their subscriber base and service offerings without compromising performance.”

The Force10 E-Series combines unmatched scalability with best-in-class resiliency to bring BIGLOBE the predictability it requires to deliver new services to an increasing number of subscribers. Fully distributed hardware and modular software deliver line-rate Gigabit and 10 Gigabit throughput across all ports regardless of traffic type or condition while built-in hardware redundancy guarantees performance continuity. Deploying the Force10 E-Series ensures that BIGLOBE has a high performance network today and in the future.

BIGLOBE provides value-added services, including Internet telephone, virus protection and data center services, to more than six million members and ISP services to more than four million subscribers. NEC is leveraging its ownership of BIGLOBE to strengthen its solutions business, creating services such as “Your Internet,” a business-to-business e-sourcing service where NEC Solutions provides a full range of services tailored to the needs of companies doing business on the Internet.

According to the Ministry of Public Management, Home Affairs, Posts and Telecommunications, Japan has more than 13.5 million broadband subscribers, up from 7.8 million in 2002. This rapid adoption is being driven by a combination of fast speeds and low prices. Japan’s broadband subscribers pay less than 0.01 percent of their monthly income per 100 kbps of broadband speed.

Contact:
Peter Ruzicka
Force10 Networks Inc.
408-965-5151
pruzicka@force10networks.com

Contact:
Jennifer Arculeo
Force10 Networks Inc.
408-965-5194
jarculeo@force10networks.com

About Force10 Networks
Force10 Networks is the pioneer in building and securing high performance networks. Based on a revolutionary system architecture that delivers best-in-class resiliency and massive scalability, Force10’s TeraScale E-Series switch/routers ensure predictable application performance, increase network availability, and reduce operating costs. Today, many of the world’s largest Gigabit Ethernet and 10 Gigabit Ethernet networks depend on Force10 Networks. For additional information, please visit www.force10networks.com.

Force10 Networks and E-Series are registered trademarks, and P-Series, S-Series, TeraScale and FTOS are trademarks of Force10 Networks, Inc. All other company names are trademarks of their respective holders.