Cisco Invests $12 Million in R&D Center in Japan

The Tokyo R&D center will focus on advanced Internet technologies such as IPv6, multicast, and wireless, in addition to improving existing security and quality-of-service (QoS) technologies.

The Tokyo R&D center will initially employ 10 engineers and will allow Cisco to take advantage of unique Japanese market conditions for the creation of new routing and software products.

Tokyo was chosen for this facility because of Japan's leadership in broadband services. The success of the government-led "e-Japan" program has provided the country with one of the most sophisticated broadband markets in the world.

With Japanese enjoying broadband at rates costing about a thirtieth of what they are in the US, service providers continue to roll out new consumer and business applications and services, such as nation-wide voice-over-IP and rich media gaming and entertainment services. Japanese service provider networks carry loads that are five times higher than in the US and broadband access is growing at more than 500 percent a year.

"Products and technologies produced to meet Japan's demand for intelligent bandwidth will be robust enough to handle any other market in the world," said Mike Volpi, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Routing Technology Group, Cisco Systems. "Japan has been an innovator in broadband services and building an R&D center in Japan is a continuation of our stated strategy of allocating research and development resources where there is talent and market opportunity."

The Cisco Carrier Routing System (CRS-1), Cisco's recent routing innovation announced earlier this year, was developed with direct input from Japanese service providers and these have been among the first companies to deploy the technology platform. A new variant of IOS, IOS XR, was specially developed to handle the requirements for availability and scalability posed by the CRS-1.