Ipsilon Networks was a computer networking company

Company

A company is a form of business organization. It is an association or collection of individual real persons and/or other companies, who each provide some form of capital. This group has a common purpose or focus and an aim of gaining profits. This collection, group or association of persons can be...

 which specialised in IP switching during the 1990s.

The first product called the IP Switch ATM 1600 was announced in March 1996 for US$

United States dollar

The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....

46,000.
Its switch used Asynchronous Transfer Mode

Asynchronous Transfer Mode

Asynchronous Transfer Mode is a standard switching technique designed to unify telecommunication and computer networks. It uses asynchronous time-division multiplexing, and it encodes data into small, fixed-sized cells. This differs from approaches such as the Internet Protocol or Ethernet that...

 (ATM) hardware combined with Internet Protocol

Internet Protocol

The Internet Protocol is the principal communications protocol used for relaying datagrams across an internetwork using the Internet Protocol Suite...

 routing.
The company had a notable role in the development of the Multiprotocol Label Switching

Multiprotocol Label Switching

Multiprotocol Label Switching is a mechanism in high-performance telecommunications networks that directs data from one network node to the next based on short path labels rather than long network addresses, avoiding complex lookups in a routing table. The labels identify virtual links between...

 (MPLS) network protocol. The company published early proposals related to label switching, but did not manage to achieve the market share hoped for and was purchased for $120 million by Nokia

Nokia

Nokia Corporation is a Finnish multinational communications corporation that is headquartered in Keilaniemi, Espoo, a city neighbouring Finland's capital Helsinki...

 in December 1997. The president at the time was Brian NeSmith

Brian NeSmith

Brian NeSmith is an American technology entrepreneur and the majority owner and founder of the FC Gold Pride of Women's Professional Soccer. He founded the club in the spring of 2009 and continues to be a co-owner with his wife Nancy, who holds the title of President. He is the former president and...

, and it was located in Sunnyvale, California

Sunnyvale, California

Sunnyvale is a city in Santa Clara County, California, United States. It is one of the major cities that make up the Silicon Valley located in the San Francisco Bay Area...

.

External links

• Archive.org's image of Ipsilon's web site taken several months prior to the acquisition by Nokia.