To: BxK (18665 )
From: BxK
Friday, Feb 4 2000 9:11PM ET
Reply # of 18672
Nortel Taking Aim At Redback
<<February 4, 2000
Nortel Taking Aim At Redback
By Joe McGarvey, Inter@ctive Week
Similar to just about everyone else making subscriber management hardware, Nortel
Networks has declared open season on market leader Redback Networks.
Nortel on Thursday unveiled a promotion that will enable service providers to exchange
what company officials call first-generation subscriber management systems for Nortel's
Shasta 5000 Broadband Service Node. The one-for-one exchange is designed to
supply service providers with equipment better able to handle the expected surge in
broadband access subscribers, according to Keerti Melkote, director of product
management for the Internet Protocol services business unit at Nortel.
"The first-generation systems that service providers are using are not scaling to the
number of subscribers they expect to sign on in the next year," Melkote said.
While Melkote said the upgrade offer applies to all subscriber management devices, the
vast majority of installed hardware is made by Redback, which has more than 100
customers.
The first to see a need for a device designed to manage the broad streams of data traffic
flowing through a service provider's network from cable modems and Digital Subscriber
Line equipment, Redback has virtually had the market to itself for the past year and a
half. In that time, the company has managed to penetrate several large networks. Most
recently, the company won a multimillion dollar deal to furnish the subscriber
management devices for Bell Atlantic's DSL services.
As a result of its early success, Redback is in the sights of nearly every would-be
competitor.
In January, French telecommunications equipment giant Alcatel declared its intention to
take on Redback with the introduction of its OneStream Broadband Access Server.
Both Alcatel and Nortel are taking a similar tack in promoting their respective
equipment as being more powerful and scalable than Redback's Subscriber
Management System. Melkote said the Shasta 5000 can initially handle 32,000
subscribers and is capable of scaling beyond that number; Redback's device will handle
about 8,000 streams, according to company officials.
Melkote added, however, that a subscriber management system's key asset is the ability
to be the center of intelligence in the network. Heavily loaded with processors, the
Shasta 5000 is designed to apply specific traffic-handling instruction to incoming data.
The ability to recognize and prioritize traffic or specific users is the key to offering
value-added services, such as firewalls and virtual private networks, Melkote said.
Nortel's upgrade program, in fact, is based on confidence that service providers are
ready to roll out these types of premium services. Although Nortel stands to take a hit in
revenue should a substantial amount of service providers decide to trade in their existing
gear, Melkote said Nortel will make up for its losses through feature upgrades that
enable service providers to deliver value-added services.
"The revenue is around value-added services," Melkote added. "When they want to
deploy these services, we can charge them for that."
The window of opportunity for Alcatel, Nortel and others to take advantage of any
potential technological lead over Redback's hardware, however, might not be open
much longer. Redback's vice president of marketing, Larry Blair, said Redback plans to
introduce a second-generation subscriber management box sometime in March.>>
zdnet.com. |
