Nokia aims to give its existing network business a massive boost by introducing the world’s most powerful Internet routing platform last week. According to the Finnish company, their new traffic routers powered by the groundbreaking FP4 silicon chipsets can “handle the greater demands of virtual reality programming, cloud-based internet services, and next-generation mobile communications”. The routers possess the benefit of being compatible with older products for customers who want speed but must still contend with the legacy gear needed to run existing services, while primarily focusing on Nokia’s vision of its evolving business model and consumer base.
Nokia’s new products, which grew due to its USD 17.5 billion acquisition of Alcatel and its IP network gear business in 2016, should help it attract the attention of companies such as Facebook, Google, Amazon, etc. For these web giants, speed is critical and unlike Nokia’s traditional telecom customers, they are continuing to invest heavily in network gear.
Nokia executives expect to take market share from all its main competitors, including Cisco and Juniper as well as Huawei. Their confidence is strong owing to the fact that the former Alcatel IP networks business is already the world’s No. 2 player in edge routers behind Cisco, having displaced Juniper Networks, which is now No. 3.
Speaking at the launch event, CTO of Nokia’s IP and optical division Steve Vogelsang said:
The company has built intelligent memory into its chip.The new FP4-based routing platforms are the company’s first that deliver terabit IP flows. This is a 10-time improvement over existing 100 Gb per second links.
Later in the year, the company is also planning to roll out it’s 7950-petabit class router, further targeting the core router market. A petabit can transmit 5000 two hour long high definition videos per second.