Remember when routing and switching in local area networks was something that enterprises paid service providers to manage for them?

Eventually, companies like Cisco Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: CSCO) were born and products emerged that allowed enterprises to do their own networking their own way, and lower their cost of ownership in the process.

Today, Cisco founder Len Bosack says he sees the same sort of thing happening with enterprise connectivity between data centers and branch offices. And his optical networking company, XKL LLC , has come up with a solution.

In this interview from May 2009, Bosack elaborates on his plan, his company's technology, and the trends he sees that seem to be pointing enterprises to become less reliant on their traditional service providers.

This was recorded live at the Interop tradeshow, so there's a bit of chop in one or two places. But we think this rather rare one-on-one opportunity to speak with a Cisco founder is well worth an occasional audio squiggle. Enjoy!

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— Phil Harvey, Editor-in-Chief, Light Reading