Abstract

Tolly Group Report #202109b (April 2002) compares BATM T4 Routing Switch (16 × Fast Ethernet, 2 × GbE) to Cisco Catalyst 3550-24 in zero-loss (<0.001% packet loss) Layer 3 bidirectional tests.

Latency advantage. At wire-speed the T4 delivered average delays of 16 µs (64-byte), 49 µs (512-byte) and 122 µs (1,518-byte) versus Catalyst’s 36 µs, 132 µs and 358 µs, yielding 2.2–2.9× lower latency across all sizes.

Wire-speed throughput. Both switches forwarded 100% of theoretical line rate for 64, 512 and 1,518-byte frames in full-mesh Fast/Gigabit Ethernet, and the T4 maintained wire speed even with Layer 4-7 ACLs active.

QoS verification. Weighted Round Robin tests under 4:1 oversubscription showed the T4 dropped each queue at the programmed percentage, confirming correct priority enforcement while still supporting 100% load.

Economics. Configured cost was $3,995 for the T4 versus $5,990 for Catalyst, translating to 1.5× better price-per-performance (cost per million packets) for BATM.

Bottom line: BATM T4 Routing Switch matches Cisco’s wire-speed throughput yet delivers up to 2.9× lower latency, accurate QoS and superior price-performance, making it a compelling choice for latency-sensitive Fast/Gigabit Ethernet deployments.