Sonus Networks is “aggressively” pursuing bankrupt vendor Nortel Networks’s carrier VoIP assets, according to an analyst. And the question for the optical division is, who’s not after it?
“Our industry sources indicate Sonus is aggressively pursuing the [VoIP] assets,” said Catharine Trebnick, senior research analyst at Avian Securities LLC, in a note. “We believe [Sonus’] latest round of North American layoffs may be attributed to [Sonus] seeking Nortel’s VoIP assets in addition to [Sonus’] relocation of organizational functions such as R&D to India.” If successful, it will be a net positive for Sonus, she said, though the vendor will most certainly need outside help with the integration.
She added that [Nokia Siemens Networks is also taking another look at the carrier VoIP assets.
As for the list of interested vendors for the metro-area networks/optical division, it’s a long one and includes Ciena, Cisco, Fujitsu, Huawei, Infinera, Juniper, Nokia-Siemens Networks and Tellabs.
Trebnick however thinks it’s unlikely that Huawei, Infinera or Cisco will participate. Infinera may not have the cash and the current CEO has announced he is resigning in January. Cisco is unlikely to participate in the bidding, as it is focused on its 30 growth initiatives. Huawei did make a bid, which was rejected by Nortel’s former CEO. It is possible any Huawei bid would be reviewed by the United States Defense Department.
“Then again, Level 3 Communications managed to bypass United States national security issues with their “new” Huawei relationship, leaving Infinera out of any future 40G build outs,” she wrote.
She thinks the likely winner will be a NSN and Juniper joint venture.
“We believe this partnership, which supports the integration of the data networking with optical transport, addresses operators’ bandwidth demands,” she noted. “We believe Nortel’s long-haul WDM and 40G optical assets compliment Nokia Siemens and Juniper’s efforts.”
Two key network trends are creating points of pain for service providers as they expand their carrier Ethernet network offerings. Network convergence is one; once multiple services are riding on the same network it is important for carriers to distinguish traffic types. Also, the plethora of multi-vendor equipment at the edge of the network has overloaded and complicated the provisioning and inventory systems. The JV effectively ties the carrier Ethernet services to the IT/back office systems helping to alleviate these issues, Trebnick concludes.
