Everything You Should Know About Cisco 2610 Routers
The Cisco 2610 router stopped being sold on April 26, 2003 and was replaced with the Cisco 2610xm router which is also no longer being sold by Cisco. Both pieces of equipment are suitable for training routers or positions on the enterprise network with slightly less load than what they were originally made for. These devices can route 15,000 packets a second which at an average packet size of 3,000 kilobits is still 45 mbps without NAT turned on. This can easily outclass any LinkSys router and easily keep up with the 1.5 mbps T1 or an E1 connection found at most satellite offices. I wouldn’t recommend installing one at an office that has more than two T1s or E1s, but if you don’t mind having networking hardware late in it’s life cycle it would do just fine. These would also be excellent for a small office that would normally get a PIX firewall or a consumer grade router.
The Cisco 2610 router as with the 2610xm comes with:
- 1 or 2 10 Mbs ethernet interfaces (RJ45)
- 1 Network Module (NM) for expansion
- 2 Wan interface cards (WIC) slots for the functions of your choice
- The 2600xm also has an advanced integration module slot for offloading some functions from the CPU
- The normal pair of console/auxiliary console ports
- As with all 2600 series routers the 2610 is rack mountable
- 1U height
Cisco 2610 routers are not being produced which means the hardware should be quite economical to buy compared to new and current Cisco routers. Hands on training works better if you have hardware for that and this is a great example of routers that are well suited to that. It also is a perfect choice for being rolled out in a lesser role. Lets be realistic, it originally was fairly expensive and doesn’t necessarily need to be discarded, just moved down from the role of routing a several hundred node network. The 2610xm is not obsolete, although it’s not exactly new either. If you are buying one consider that the device is newer than the 2610 but routes 20 rather than 15 thousand packets a second. The 2610xm is not a huge improvement over the 2610.
Please take a look at our inventory of Cisco 2610 and 2610xm routers. Our inventory is constantly changing as product is purchased and new items are added.
If you are unsatisfied with our inventory you can take a look at what our business partner has for 2610s in stock here or new equipment here.
For a current router still being made buying anything in the 2800 line of Cisco routers would be my recommendation. The 1800 line would also be possible if you want to take a step down from the role the 2600 routers were originally intended for.