As long as Cisco leads the router market, competitors will continue to come up with differentiators. With Adtran's new NetVanta 4305 access router, the differentiators are price, price, price. Depending on configuration, the Net-Vanta 4305 — which Adtran began shipping in late September and will provide upgraded routing software at the end of this month — can cost thousands of dollars less than similarly equipped Cisco models. As our exclusive Clear Choice tests show, the NetVanta 4305 is a modest performer. The beta routing software still has some rough spots, including scalability issues, but the price advantage might offset these, especially for managers of small or midsize enterprise networks. The 1U systems we tested were equipped with two fixed-port Fast Ethernet interfaces and an optional module supporting eight T-1 (1.544M bit/sec) serial interfaces.The NetVanta 4305's base price includes support for IPv4 routing protocols and a stateful firewall. IPSec support is optional, as is a DSX-1 module for interconnection with PBXs.
展开▼
