The carrier router and switch market was up 16% in the first quarter of 2005 from the first quarter of 2004, according to Infonetics Research.

Worldwide revenue for service provider routers and switches totaled $1.63 billion in the first quarter of 2005, up less than 1% from the fourth quarter of 2004. Infonetics forecasts the market to reach $8.9 billion in 2008.

RHK, meanwhile, says the carrier router/switch market actually declined sequentially by a single percent in the first quarter to $1.666 billion. Cisco owns 46% of the combined market and saw a 2.7% increase in revenue. Juniper was next with 18% and a .4% sequential revenue increase, according to RHK.

Nortel, Alcatel and Lucent rounded out the top five, but all experienced sequential revenue declines. Alcatel was down 3.3% from the fourth quarter, RHK found.

Worldwide revenue for service provider IP routers totaled $1.1 billion in the first quarter of 2005, up 7% sequentially and up 25% year-over-year, according to Infonetics. Dell'Oro Group found that Internet backbone routers specifically grew for the eighth consecutive quarter in the first quarter: 9% sequentially to $420 million.

Gartner Dataquest, meanwhile, believes it has pinpointed a new market segment in carrier routing: multiservice edge, which tracks equipment and vendors offering products that incorporate multiple services and can handle packet processing of ATM; frame relay; Layer 2 and 3 VPNs; leased lines; video applications; broadband aggregation; Ethernet; and voice applications.

Examples are Alcatel's 7750; Cisco's 7600 with Optical Service Module interface and 12000; Laurel Networks' (now ECI's) ST; Juniper's M320; Nortel's MPE 9000; Tellabs' 8800; Riverstone's 15000 and RS series; and Redback's SmartEdge Router.

This market was $120.8 million in the first quarter, according to Gartner Dataquest. Cisco had 48.5% of that, followed by Juniper at 28.2%, Redback at 15.4%, Alcatel at 4.7% and Tellabs at 3.2%.