Phil Hochmuth, Network World - 15/08/2005 09:13:11

Cisco is readying a Catalyst 6500 switch upgrade that will double the bandwidth on the device, allowing for greater support of 10G Ethernet, a report says.

Cisco is planning to launch its Supervisor 1440 module for the Catalyst 6500 in the next two months, according to a report by UBS. The new module will reportedly support 1.4T bit/sec of bandwidth to the switch, doubling the capacity of the previous Supervisor 720 module.

Cisco said it does not comment on unannounced products and would not confirm or provide details on the Supervisor 1440 product.

"Cisco has not done an update for almost two years," says Long Jiang, a UBS Warburg analyst. "And now that they are doing it, it's going to make them more competitive. It's going to create more competitive pressure to a tier 2 vendor. All vendors will feel some increased pressure from Cisco."