Cisco and Intel team up on Gigabit

Industry giants target mid-sized firms to push Gigabit speeds.

Cisco and Intel are targeting their Gigabit Ethernet products at medium-sized businesses, with the former releasing its 1000BaseT high-performance Gigabit Ethernet over copper technology which, tied with Intel adapters, is aimed at helping businesses migrate from 100Mbps to 1000Mbps.

John Mason, vice president of commercial line of business for Cisco Europe, Middle East & Africa, said: "By working together we can accelerate the extension of Ethernet to Gigabit speed for server connectivity and copper-based networks that were constrained to 100Mbps."

Interoperability was a key issue and both companies assured users that an efficient joint support system will be available. Engineers have performed a series of tests to verify interoperability between the Intel PRO/1000 family of adapters and Cisco Catalyst switching platforms.

"It was critical to test our products for interoperability and provide service and support so that customers can deploy Gigabit Ethernet over copper networks with confidence," said Greg Lang, vice president and general manager of Intel's platform networking group.