Abstract

Unisphere Networks, Inc. commissioned The Tolly Group to evaluate its ERX-1400 Edge Router, a network platform designed to enable rapid deployment of IP services – including private-line aggregation, xDSL access, broadband cable access and wireless access – from a single platform at wire speed. 

Unisphere’s ERX-1400 is presented as a carrier-class edge router designed to combine wire-speed forwarding with large-scale subscriber management and IP service delivery for broadband access networks. In Tolly Group testing, the platform was evaluated for broadband remote access server performance, multicast scaling, and BGP-4 route convergence to determine whether advanced service features affected forwarding performance under heavy load.  

In the broadband RAS tests, the ERX-1400 was configured to support 31,996 simulated subscribers while running full Internet BGPv4 routes, ICMP rate limiting, source-address validation, and per-subscriber virtual-circuit shaping. With 40-byte traffic, the router delivered essentially line-rate performance, forwarding 704,000 packets per second at OC-12, equal to about 352,001 cells per second on each of four ATM OC-3 interfaces, or roughly 99.7% of the theoretical ATM OC-3 maximum. With 1,406-byte packets and unspecified bit rate shaping, the system again reached almost 100% of theoretical maximum, and with more demanding nrt-VBR and CBR shaping it still exceeded 95% of maximum throughput.  

The report also highlights multicast scale for broadband video services. Tolly verified that the ERX-1400 could scale to 6,000 multicast routes by forwarding either a single multicast stream replicated to 300 virtual circuits on each of 20 ATM OC-3 interfaces or 300 distinct streams per interface across the same 20-port footprint. Using approximately 300kbit/s video-style streams, delay between replicated multicast samples was reported at 362 to 383 microseconds for 512-byte packets and 670 to 726 microseconds for 1,500-byte packets, with relatively low delay variation.  

For control-plane behavior, the ERX-1400 was peered with a Cisco 7204 and populated with roughly 99,000 to 100,000 BGP prefixes, completing route convergence in about five to six minutes while maintaining live forwarding services. Overall, the report positions the ERX-1400 as a high-capacity edge services platform that can sustain near-wire-speed performance while supporting subscriber scale, multicast delivery, and multiple IP service features simultaneously.  

Note: Unisphere Networks was formed in 1998 as a subsidiary of Siemens AG. It was sold in 2002 to Juniper Networks. Juniper Networks was acquired by HPE in 2025.