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Cisco Promises More Innovation, Soon: Page 3 of 3

And while Cisco did persuade four service providers to participate in the event, the representatives from Sprint, NTT, Deutsche Telekom's T-Com fixed-network division and MCI were all noncommittal when it came to promising purchases of the CRS-1. Kathy Walker, Sprint's executive vice president for network services, offered the strongest commitment by confirming "an intent to purchase" at least one CRS-1.

To those who would say that the CRS-1 has a limited audience, Cisco's Volpi said similar predicitions were made for the company's last high-end router, the 12000 Series, which went on to be a billon-dollar-plus business success. But as noted several times throughout Tuesday's presentations, predictions of future bandwidth needs have almost always fallen well short of reality.

"There is some credibility gained with customers and employees just by building the CRS-1, to show our technical leadership," Volpi said. "But I remember when we came out with [the 12000 series], people said it was all about ego, and nobody would buy them. I firmly think this [the CRS-1] is going to sell. First to the top 30 carriers, and then to a broader market thereafter."