Marconi, a leading global supplier of advanced networking solutions, today announced that it has been selected by Sprint to provide high performance communications solutions for the company's broadband services network. The agreement announced today includes the deployment of Marconi's ASX(TM)-4000 into Sprint's network, and it continues the long-standing relationship Sprint had with Reltec and FORE Systems, both now part of Marconi.

ASX-4000 is the Primary Broadband Network Switch

Initial deployments of the ASX-4000 are already underway. The ASX-4000s will provide the advanced, multiservice switching architecture for Sprint's broadband services network, connecting a series of Points of Presence (PoPs) around North America.

"When evaluating solutions for our broadband network services, we demanded a switch that would provide us with the maximum speed, capacity, reliability and scalability," said Marty Kaplan, Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer for Sprint. "With the Marconi solution, we were able to achieve those objectives and have a solution that provided us with outstanding software functionality that will allow us to quickly offer more advanced services to our customers."

"Our relationship with Sprint is further evidence that Marconi has become a leading telecommunications solution provider in North America," added Mike Parton, Chief Executive Officer of Marconi Communications. "We specialize in helping our service provider customers offer the most advanced services available in a fast and reliable solution, and Sprint is at the forefront of offering multiservice communications services."

"With the functionality and carrier-class redundancy of the ASX-4000, we're confident that our broadband services will remain the solution of choice for the foreseeable future," added Kaplan.

ASX-4000 Provides UNI Services at the Edge of Sprint's Broadband Network

With the ASX-4000, Sprint will be able to offer its customers UNI services at OC-12 (622 Mbps), OC-3 (155 Mbps), DS3 (44.7 Mbps) or DS1 (1.544 Mbps) rates, as well as through inverse multiplexing over ATM (IMA). With uplink speeds of OC-48c, the ASX-4000 will enable Sprint to offer differentiated broadband services via a rich connection-oriented networking feature set including industry-leading calls per second performance, advanced traffic management, congestion-aware and constraint-based routing, and scalable node redundancy.

"The Marconi solution allows us to offer a wider range of service interfaces to our customers and to upgrade our service to OC-48 (2.488 Gbps) speeds immediately by simply swapping out a line card," added Kaplan.

http://www.marconi.com