UK ISP BT to Upgrade Internet Peering Network with Cisco 5500 Kit

Telecoms giant BT has extended their existing relationship with network technology company Cisco by adopting their Network Convergence System (NCS) 5500 series routers, which forms part of the broadband ISPs work to upgrade their internet peering platform.

We don’t know exactly which solution(s) they’ll go for in the 5500 series but the top 5508 can take a total of 36 ports (each at 100 Gigabits) per line card and it will fit 8 line cards (total of 288 ports), which gives the chassis a maximum throughput of 28.8Tbps (Terabits per second). Power consumption also equates to only around 0.3 watts per 1Gbps.

According to Fierce Telecom, BT is upgrading its internet peering platform so as to improve its connectivity with other carrier networks and ISPs, as well as to support customers across cloud deployments (as per usual). The new system should also help the operator’s on-going efforts to boost its related deep network automation and telemetry.

Neil J. McRae, BT Group’s Chief Network Architect, said:

“As businesses and consumers adopt more digital and cloud-based services that are hosted anywhere in the world, peering capacity is a key capability of any providers’ infrastructure. BT is focused on network leadership and with Cisco we are extending our telemetry-based automation as part of this deployment.”

End.