Partners Welcome New Lucent Switch

The switch is targeted at tier-two telecommunications players such as independent carriers, smaller CLECs and ISPs. It will be sold, implemented and supported by Lucent business partners.

The iGen Compact Switch delivers Class 5 switching and scales from 32 to 10,000 subscribers. Lucent partners say they like the turnkey approach the vendor is taking with iGen.

"What we're getting is a full-function box with all of the key features of a 5E switch. But instead of the complexity of engineering, operating and maintaining 5E, all of a sudden we get two circuits with one interface that can be engineered and installed by partners, rather than Lucent," said Glenn Johansen, president and CEO of LightRiver Technologies, a Lafayette, Calif.-based systems integrator.

Compared with existing small legacy switches, iGen offers customers a savings of up to 90 percent on operating expenses such as installation, heating, cooling, power, spare parts, maintenance and office space, according to Lucent.

"The iGen is a very downward-scalable, next-generation switch platform that we are offering through our business partners," said Mark Wilson, vice president of Lucent's business partner organization. "The partners have good engineering, design, service and support capabilities and know this space."

LightRiver customers are already interested in adopting iGen, Johansen said.

"This product will make a lot of people sit up and take notice because of its feature set and the ability to offer next-generation services by giving customers the ability to migrate to IP networks," he said.

Jimmy McCann, sales manager at PVA Global, a Burlington, N.C.-based network solution and professional services provider, said iGen will open new market segments for his company.

"We'll be able to go after a smaller market segment with this product and know, based on the great support we've gotten from Lucent in the past, that they will help us get up to speed on [iGen]," McCann said.