Cisco showcased a wide array of networking products and solutions at the 'Cisco Enterprise 2005' last Tuesday at a local hotel. In their much known existing LAN and WAN products, this time they had introduced IP telephony alongside some of their latest innovations with advanced technologies in routers.

Rangu Salgame, the company's president for India and Saarc who was on a visit to Bangladesh for a day, took the pleasure of informing that Cisco in its twenty years has had great innovations in terms of technology as well as the market. It has invested more than USD $3 billion just on their research and development (R&D) and today it has a yearly revenue of USD $22 billion of which has USD $17 billion in cash.

"Over the last 10 to 15 years as internet has become the de facto for corporate worldwide, Cisco has been the leader in setting standard for the internet protocol (IP) technology. We have 35,000 employees worldwide and over the last 3 to 5 years we have significantly invested in a large R&D centre in Bangalore, India, where we are developing our new products for this region", said Salgame.

"The world's leading corporation today runs up on networks and internet, and that help us increase productivity and gain sustainable advantage against the competitors. The second thing that we try is our customer satisfaction. Our CEO, John Chambers does not start a meeting without first addressing the top ten issues of our customers", proudly said the president.

The president was happy enough with the adoption of advanced technology here and he feels this region understands the importance of advanced technology because the companies want to leapfrog generation of technologies and be able to compete against their competitors with the best technologies.

As part of their educational programme Cisco had tied up with 9 academies in Bangladesh where they are associated with Cisco Network Academic Programme (CNAP) having 932 students certified of what have 100 scholarships awarded to women as Cisco Certified Network Associates (CCNA). Cisco defines it as giving back to the society in terms of creating employment and skilled labour force.

Banking sector has been one of the key adopters of IT in Bangladesh, with four nationalised, thirty private-commercials and ten multinational banks. Cisco's noted clients in this sector include Dutch Bangla Bank Limited, The City Bank and The Exim Bank. The other thriving sector for Bangladesh at present has been the telecom market where Cisco is a solution provider for Grameen Phone, Pacific Bangladesh Telecom Limited and AK Khan Group.

The session next to Salgame's words were based on the technical aspects having IP telephony on focus as its latest technology. IP telephony is basically a mechanism of internet protocol doing the function of Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) but in an enhanced and versatile layout than the existing ones. The phone devices exclusively used for IP telephony are driven thru in line power switches. In line power switches make the connection between the switch and IP telephony established thru RJ45 adapters that are configured in the phone sets as well besides the traditional RJ11 adapters that are used in regular telephone sets.

The IP phones have been classified with different technological solutions of what may be at video telephony solution, software communication thru' desktop or remote PCs, Gigabit Ethernet IP phones and wireless IP phones. 'CallManager', a device used to prevent unauthorised access of IP phones, authenticates the communications between any of these phones. A Callmanager in a corporate location can capacitate a maximum of 10000 IP phones.

Thunai Selvam, senior consultant, Cisco systems (India) Pvt. Limited, explained the features of the IP phones that are capable of performing unified messaging which transfers voice mails into emails. Inclusion of extensible markup language (XML) in the IP phones open the gateway for numerous value added services among what could be a replacement of automated teller machines (ATM) for non cash transactions in banking sector as Selvam had pointed.

Integrated Services Router is Cisco's latest technology in routing that is built with high performance platform, as well as it can run multiple services. It has embedded security with inbuilt firewall, IPS and VPN concentrator. ISR has been built on a platform of 800, 1800, 2800 and 3800 series that represent a new architectural design specifically to fit the needs of SMBs.

The Cisco System's SMB Class portfolio of networking solutions emphasizes on networking with security, availability, and quality of service designed specifically for smaller companies. This time routers in its new avatar fit in with more user-friendly security and network management tools and a shift in graphical user interface.