PBT vs MPLS: Round VII

8:00 AM -- Conference panel sessions can often be boring affairs, but occasionally a topic crops up that raises people's blood pressure. PBT is one such topic.

A session at the Carrier Ethernet World Congress in Geneva last week got a bit tasty when PBT's main sponsor, Nortel Networks Ltd. , and the Ethernet technology's main detractors, Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE: ALU), Cisco Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: CSCO), and Juniper Networks Inc. (NYSE: JNPR), shared the stage.

As the debate raged -- "PBT is much cheaper than MPLS," followed by, "No it's not, and MPLS is much more useful," and so on -- Nortel stalwart Dave Allan (consultant architect, CTO's office) chipped in with the event's quote of the week:

"We have to get away from the conceit that routers have to be involved in everything!"

A great retort that got the crowd chuckling, but I bet Nortel wishes it had a router of its own to pitch into the battle.

It did try at one point, didn't it? (See Neptune Changes Orbit and Neptune Arrives.)

— Ray Le Maistre, Verbal Jousting Editor, Light Reading