The Broadband Business Unit of Acer CM (Acer Communications & Multimedia) announced today the beginning of mass production and shipping of its first ADSL (Asymmetrical Digital Subscriber Line) router, the Acer ASR 688. The new product will be showcased at CeBIT in Hannover, Germany at the end of March, along with Central Office (CO) equipment such as CSU/DSU, fiber optical multiplexer (FOM) and T1/E1 multiplexers.
Bruce Huang, vice president and head of the Acer CM Broadband Business Unit, said that the roadmap for Acer CM broadband product development would mainly focus on providing total solutions, which include CO equipment such as T1/E1 multiplexers, CSU/DSU, LMDS, fiber optics transmission systems and Customer Premise Equipment (CPE) xDSL products. For years, the Group's Broadband Business Unit has specialised in manufacturing large CO equipment. The move into customer premise equipment is a first for Acer CM. It is not only a groundbreaking initiative for the Group, but also a symbol of the convergence of the Unit's extensive experience in manufacturing networking equipment and Acer CM's existing mass production advantage.
Bruce said that the newly developed Acer ASR 688 ADSL router passed the interoperability tests for major DSLAM vendors such as Alcatel, Lucent and Cisco. Optimism is running high for the product's performance in the ADSL market; fixed network operator Sparq has already placed a purchase order. Furthermore, the ASR 688 supports G.992 Annex B. This means it provides high-speed ADSL transmission over ISDN, an important added feature in the European market where ISDN is widely deployed. Acer CM will pitch the new router at CeBIT and expects a favourable response from the European market.
Appealing mainly to SOHO and SME users, the ASR 688 ADSL router boasts a compact design that is smaller than other routers in the market. Substantial effort has also been made to meet telecom carriers' requirements for transmission stability over an extended period of operation. For instance, to reduce temperature-related failures, the router consumes less than seven watts of power. In addition, the ASR 688 supports a broad spectrum of multimedia applications such as ICQ, NetMeeting, Real Player, CuSeeMee and IP-TV. It also provides single-account sharing for reduced business cost and a built-in firewall for added network security.
The Acer CM Broadband Business Unit was founded in March 2000 with the acquisition of Bri-Link, which provided an R&D team that mainly hailed from Siemens. Backed by extensive system experience and integration capability, the Unit specialises in the research, development and manufacturing of large-scale networking equipment.
Acer CM (Acer Communications & Multimedia) is a professional communications and computer peripherals vendor, designing, manufacturing and marketing its products worldwide. Since its establishment in 1984, the Group has developed a diversified product line that includes monitor, projector, CD-Rewriter, CD-ROM, DVD-ROM, scanner, multiplexer, mobile phone and broadband networking equipment.
