Shandong Enters New World of Telecommunications with Massive Internet Expansion

PTA to Install Cisco AS5800 Access Servers to Support Over 12,000 Connections

BEIJING, China -- January 26, 1999 -- Cisco Systems has entered into an agreement with the Shandong Post and Telecommunications Authority (PTA) to supply an array of high-end AS5800 access servers. The new equipment will provide the dial access component of the PTA's massive Internet expansion project and will initially support over 12,000 new access ports across the province. Shandong is North China's largest PTA with 1.23 million mobile phone customers, and 40,000 Internet users. It is currently undertaking a major expansion of its Internet backbone infrastructure, based around Cisco routers and switches, to keep up with customer demand. Said Jiabin Duh, managing director of Cisco Systems China, "The fact that Shandong PTA is deploying such a powerful access server platform reflects the fact that the scale and pace of Internet development in China is now fast reaching the same level as North America and Europe. "Customers such as Shandong PTA are why Cisco Systems is striving to deliver network solutions that scale to support tens of thousands of Internet users and enable a range of new services. With the AS5800 it has a carrier-class Internet access platform with exceptional reliability and performance." Liu Cheng Ming, vice chief engineer of Shandong PTA and director of Shandong Information Service Bureau, said, "The Cisco AS5800 solution was chosen because of its high port density and scalability, Signalling System 7 (SS7) compatibility, and support for advanced network service such as virtual private networks and voice-over-IP." Introduced to the market earlier this year, the Cisco AS5800 can support up to 1,344 concurrent connections with maximum performance. Built with carrier class redundancy, the Cisco AS5800 provides availability at 99.999 per cent - a figure which equates to less than five minutes of downtime per year. The AS5800 is ideally suited to provide wholesale dial services to large enterprises that do not want to support their own dial pools. With support for virtual private networks in Cisco IOS. software, Shandong PTA will be able to leverage its Internet access infrastructure to also support user access to corporate networks. SS7 is a global standard that defines the procedures and protocols that convey signalling information between switching systems in the public switched telephone network (PSTN). The SS7 capability of the AS5800 will enable Shandong PTA to integrate its access servers with the PSTN, resulting in fewer busy signals and less congestion on the telephone network.

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