Cisco 500 Series Network Convergence System (NCS 500) vs. Sierra Wireless AirLink Cellular Routers and Gateways

Well suited for10G aggregation at network edge. Small managed networks such as school districts or distributed enterprise campus. Not well suited to RPHY aggregation at network core — queuing in NCS540 results in jitter and poor RPHY performance. Allow port license purchases in smaller units. Better support for SLA performance monitoring capabilities would allow use as a box for 10G aggregation for Carrier Ethernet NNI handoff.

Incentivized

If you only need 10 devices, there are other solutions that will fit and may be cheaper. For deployments of hundreds of devices, the management capabilities of the product are well worth the cost. In addition, for sites that run on low power (e.g. solar), the devices are fantastic, with idle power <1W for some devices.

Incentivized

• Switching.
• Routing.
• Access.

Incentivized

• Cellular band coverage
• Managability
• Software updates

Incentivized

• MPLS feature set on NCS520
• Full support for RFC2544, Y.1564 across the product line
• Greater clarity of the impact of smaller buffers on NCS540 when compared to other Qumran chipsets — some use cases like RPHY aggregation at network core are not a good fit.

Incentivized

• Configuration changes require a reboot

Incentivized

Cisco NCS is smaller and for us newer. Better cost with similar capabilities.

Incentivized

The manageability and power requirements of the Sierra Wireless modems is great. The cost of alternative solutions may be lower, but the Sierra Wireless solution has saved the company from many issues over the past 10 years.

Incentivized

• Relatively low cost access layer device.
• Very cost effective means of getting 10G interfaces.
• Some features available on other devices out of the box are more complex or absent on the NCS without licensing or assistance.

Incentivized

• These devices have allowed us to replace copper circuits without the high costs of a satellite solution
• The low operating costs have allowed us to deploy cell to improve resiliency at many sites
• The serial port allows us to replace modem access at sites where copper circuits have become very expensive.

Incentivized