Global Vendor Roundup: Alcatel-Lucent, Ciena, NSN, Coriant, NEC

The US is quiet so far today, but here’s a quick roundup of vendor news from around the world over the weekend:

Alcatel-Lucent has picked up two interesting deals on two continents over the past few days. This morning, they announced a collaboration with Korea’s KT on NFV. The two will take Alcatel-Lucent’s various SDN/NFV initiatives and give them some field work to prove themselves. The technologies involved will be Alcatel’s Lucent’s virtualized evolved packet core, CloudBand NFV platform, and Nuage Networks’ virtualized services platform. Meanwhile, Alcatel-Lucent was busy down in Africa. They’re helping MTN Nigeria with some 100G, upgrading the carrier’s 10G network.

The Europe India Gateway has finished up its first phase of 100G upgrades.  Ciena’s specialist services team has deployed the company’s technology on the 15,000km cable.  EIG lands in 10 other countries along the path from the UK to India.

Nokia Networks signed a big contract in the Far East for just under $1B. With German and Chinese government leaders in attendence, they and China Mobile signed a $970M deal for 4G TD-LTE technology, as the Chinese giant starts to roll out 4G. Scaling 3G was quite a job for China Mobile in the country’s dense, mobile-heavy markets, I can’t wait to see how 4G works out – censorship or not.

Coriant won a key longhaul deal down in Latin America. TIM Brazil is deploying their transport platform for a 100G-capable upgrade, scaling their backhaul network. The World Cup tested the region’s infrastructure pretty heavily, and with the Olympics next on tap in just two years I think we’ll be seeing even more investments in the country’s wireless and wired networks.

And NEC’s American division announced a big shift in its pricing for SDN technology. They’re now offering a starter pack and pay-as-you-grow plan for their OpenFlow-bsed SDN controller, starting at $3000. They’ve also enhanced the service to beter handle campus networks, with Marist College one of the early adopters.

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Categories: SDN · Telecom Equipment · Undersea cables · Wireless