Regarding the ISR's new VOIP features, Bradley said this may be useful, but the council is experiencing success with existing equipment for a 50-user trial. If approved, the council could have as many as 6000 people using VOIP.

Cisco senior systems engineer Martin Lindeman said the ISR is the fourth generation of the company's branch router technology which is revised about every five years.

"It's all about migration and not about a big-bang or forcing customers to upgrade to make their lives difficult," Lindeman said, adding that for the same price, the ISR has better specs and more features than the 2600 series.

"We wouldn't use a stick but always a carrot, [and] people have voted with their wallets," he said. "Today IP is the underlying infrastructure,e but it's all about delivering services like voice, video, and power over Ethernet.

"The ISR can do all that in the one device and get excellent performance. The expectations of the market have moved on."