Cisco Systems Inc.'s new Aggregation Services Router (ASR) 1000 has a couple of intriguing technology additives, including an integrated session border control (SBC) facility.

It was a mixed fourth quarter of sorts for the Ethernet switching market, which -- in spite of a 2 percent dip (vis-à-vis Q3 numbers) -- was up fully 9 percent for the year, growing to $17.3 billion worldwide, according