It's not the CTR next-generation platform that Light Reading highlighted recently, but Cisco Systems Inc. does have a core-router upgrade it's announcing Wednesday.

Aiming for capacities of 400 Gbit/s per slot, up from 160 Gbit/s, the upgrade is called CRS-X, where the "X" can be pronounced "ex" or "ten." Just don't describe it as a long-lost brother.

The 400 Gbit/s comes in the form of cards with four 100Gbit/s Ethernet ports (supplied via Cisco's proprietary CPAK optical modules) that will be available in the second half of the year, says Sri Hosakote, vice president of Cisco's routing group. He adds that the CRS's switch fabric has been capable of this capacity for "a couple of years."

Cisco is announcing SoftBank Mobile Corp. and Verizon Wireless as CRS-X customers.

Why this matters
That Cisco is announcing a CRS upgrade now suggests that the CTR, assuming it really exists, isn't being revealed any day soon. (Darn -- the CTR is supposedly the next-generation successor to CRS, aiming for capacities of 1 Tbit/s per slot.)

Meanwhile, the game of leapfrog for bragging rights on particular features continues. Cisco is now boasting 64 100Gbit/s ports per 7-foot rack for the CRS-X, compared with 80 for the Alcatel-Lucent 7950 (fueled by AlcaLu's own four-port 100Gbit/s card) or 32 per rack for the Juniper Networks Inc. T4000.

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— Craig Matsumoto, Managing Editor, Light Reading