Foundry Networks Inc. Monday is unveiling three new 10-Gigabit Ethernet compact modular switches in its SuperX family of hardware.

According to Foundry officials in San Jose, the new switches provide the industry"s highest Gigabit Ethernet and 10-Gigabit Ethernet density per rack, and up to eight systems can be configured for each 7-foot rack, said product manager Bill Ryan. In one configuration, a single rack could support as many as 128 10-Gigabit Ethernet ports, as well as 1,632 Gigabit Ethernet ports and 1,536 Power-over-Ethernet ports.

Pipe Networks, an Internet Exchange in Brisbane, Australia, serving 1.5 million Internet users, recently purchased six SuperX series switches and has already deployed two of them in a 10-Gigabit Ethernet network serving five cities, said Bevan Slattery, managing director of Pipe Networks.

Pipe Networks spent about US$380,000 on the hardware "because no other vendors could provide the feature set we required at a comparable price," Slattery said in an e-mail interview. The deployment gives Pipe Networks the backbone capacity it needs to serve more customers with better reliability and redundancy, he said.

Zeus Kerravala, an analyst at The Yankee Group in Boston, said the SuperX family "is a heck of a switch for the money," noting that it provides greater density -- meaning more ports in a given space -- than Cisco Systems Inc."s Catalyst 4500 family.

Foundry competes with Cisco Systems Inc., Extreme Networks Inc. and several other networking equipment vendors, and now has about 7,000 customers worldwide. Kerravala said Foundry has until now had a reputation for building high-performance switches, not lower-priced models.

The Super X family includes three switches for distinct applications:

-- The FastIron SuperX Layer 2 switch is for edge networks and wiring closets, and is available now at a starting price of $14,985. The Layer 3 version starts at $58,960.

-- The TurboIron SuperX is a two- and three-backbone switch for the enterprise and metro layers. It"s available now starting at $44,995. Foundry officials said it has the lowest 10-Gigabit Ethernet price in the industry -- less than $2,500 per port.

-- The BigIron SuperX is a 10-Gigabit Ethernet aggregation and core Layer 3 network switch. Available in March, it will start at $82,500 per switch.