Nortel Wins 2 More Cable Softswitch Contracts
Two major cable operators, Rogers in Canada and Adelphia in the U.S., announced they'll use Nortel as their primary softswitch vendor as they roll out VoIP. Nortel previously signed agreements with Cox and Charter in the U.S. as cable operators move to offer phone service as part of a triple package along with video and broadband. With Wed.’s announcements, the top 5 U.S. MSOs have made at least preliminary decisions on who will supply their switches.
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Nortel previously lost a bid to be primary softswitch vendor to Comcast, by far the largest U.S. MSO, which indicated last Oct. it instead had selected Cedar Point Communications as its primary softswitch vendor. Comcast, however, because of its size tends to work with multiple vendors and may make other announcements, a source said Wed. Comcast previously indicated it will likely add another switch vendor.
Nortel also lost out on a contract with #2 U.S. MSO Time Warner Cable, which uses Cisco switches. A spokesman said Wed. that while Cisco is the company’s only softswitch supplier, it doesn’t plan to designate a primary supplier.
A Nortel spokeswoman said that the timing of the Adelphia and Rogers announcements was coincidental. However, it does further establish Nortel as the leading softswitch vendor to the N. American cable industry. Under the agreements, Adelphia and Rogers will deploy Nortel’s Communication Server (CS) 2000-Compact switches.
Adelphia is the #5 U.S. MSO with 5.3 million subscribers in 2004. Cox and Charter are the #3 and #4 MSOs, respectively. Rogers passes 3.3 million homes with a 69% basic cable penetration rate. Rogers said it plans to offer digital phone service in mid-2005. VTR of Chile, TeleCable in Spain, Telenet in Belgium and ish and Kabel BW in Germany have also selected Nortel to provide switches.
“As the competition heats up to capture more subscribers and keep pace with new technologies, our cable customers like Adelphia continue to look at voice over IP technologies to give subscribers the best of the Internet with the best of today’s telephone network,” said Dan Mondor, Nortel gen. mgr.-global cable solutions.
Light Reading, meanwhile, predicted in a new report that VoIP customers, which numbered one million in 2004, could climb to 16 million in 4 years. The firm predicted that VoIP activity from MSOs will “continue to pressure the RBOCs to respond with their own packet-voice offerings.”