Telecom Ramblings

A rebound in the telecom sector is something we are all hoping for after last year’s frantic cost cutting and delayed purchasing.  One key step along the path to a more sustainable capex level across the industry is obviously the choice of what new gear to spend it on, and therefore I find it encouraging that we have seen quite a few interesting selections this week.  Here are a few that caught my eye:

Wireless equipment challenger Stoke won a huge contract with NTT Docomo for its mobile access gateway for its LTE network buildout.  The gear is already in use for some of the company’s femtocell services.  Stoke’s gear is designed to thrive in the wireless data floodwaters that are only now just beginning to rise.  I don’t know much about the company, but I suspect we will be hearing more from them.

Global Crossing (GLBC: chart, news) has added a selection of Juniper routers and gateways to its managed network services portfolio, and will also expand its capabilities with WAN Optimization via Juniper’s WXC series.  The company is bulking up its ability to serve large multinational clients, looking to take on its larger ILEC/PTT based competition in the international corporate segment more directly.  

Paetec (PAET: chart, news) announced that it will standardize on Cisco gear for its next generation core and edge networks.  The company has of course spent the last few years integrating the networks of USLEC and McLeodUSA, which no doubt means their network has a rather wide range of equipment currently.  So it’s no surprise that for the next generation they will seek to simplify that infrastructure, and of course Cisco does sell just about everything they might need to do that job.  

On the European LTE front, Nokia Siemens Networks won a big contract with Teliasonera, apparently displacing Chinese challenger Huawei.  NSN will provide the gear powering the company’s 4G networks in Norway and Sweden.  This is particularly notable given that the company’s Stockholm and Oslo LTE networks went live just last month using gear from Ericsson and Huawei.  According to LightReading, Ericsson is still in the mix, but Huawei is out of the picture for now.    But as the challenger in the European marketplace, I’m sure they’ll be back.

And PalmettoNet has selected ROADM gear from Ciena (CIEN: chart, news) to increase both the capacity and agility of its networks.  With Ciena’s gear they hope to cut both costs and provisioning times.  PalmettoNet doesn’t pop up on the national radar screen very often, but it has 3100 route miles of metro and regional fiber blanketing the Carolinas part of Georgia and mostly operates on the wholesale side as a carriers’ carrier.