Cisco Systems Inc is the latest networking house to integrate high-speed 56Kbps modem technology into its current and future dial access product lines. But in its bid to win over Internet service providers looking to switch to the new 56Kbps modem speed Cisco has rejected US Robotics’ 56Kbps technology and thrown its weight behind the K56Flex standard being developed by Lucent Technologies Inc and the Rockwell Semiconductor Systems arm of Rockwell International Inc. The joint interoperable 56Kbps modem protocol, K56Flex, is a combination of Rockwell’s K56PLUS and Lucent’s V.flex2 technologies. According to Cisco, it will integrate the 56Kbps technology together with Microcom Inc – the company that supplies the modem technology currently used in the Cisco AS5200 Universal Access Server, and with whom Cisco says it will continue to work in the development of future departmental access servers. The AS5200 will be the first Cisco product to get the increase in speed, with customer inter-operability testing to begin in February, says the company. Cisco’s high-density dial access servers currently under development will also support 56Kbps technology.
