What is the difference between the CISCO1720 and the CISCO1721?

The Cisco 1720 modular access router has been a very popular choice for small businesses looking for WAN connectivity, such as ISDN and T1.  The CISCO1720 was end-of-lifed by Cisco on August 1, 2003.  The replacement router was the CISCO1721.  This article looks at both routers and explains the difference between the two.

Both the CISCO1720 and CISCO1721 include the following:

One autosensing 10/100 Fast Ethernet port
2 WAN Interface Card slots (WIC)
One AUX Port
One Console Port
One Internal expansion slot for VPN encryption card (MOD1700-VPN)

The updated and newer CISCO1721 differs in the following:

Routing Performance: +40%
DRAM (Default/Maximum): 32MB/96MB  (Compared to 32MB/48MB on CISCO1720)
Flash (Default/Maximum): 16MB/16MB (Compared to 8MB/16MB on CISCO1720)
IEEE 802.1Q VLAN Routing: Yes
Encryption Module LED: Yes

To summarize, the CISCO1721 offer higher performance, increased memory capacity and additional functionality as compared to the CISCO1720.

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