Sprint North Supply distributes White Rock ADMs

Sprint North Supply, the equipment distribution arm of Sprint, announced today it has been distributing Sonet add/drop multiplexers (ADMs) made by White Rock Networks since November 2003.

Sprint North Supply sells to wireless carriers and independent operating companies (IOCs), counting at least 90% of the country’s 1,200 or so IOCs as customers, said Dale Dotson, SNS’s director of product management. SNS helps equipment vendors—especially optical equipment vendors—reach a wider customer base through its more than 80-person sales force.

Though Sprint North Supply often sells products used in Sprint’s network, such as Nortel’s OpTera gear and Alcatel’s 7300s, White Rock’s ADMs are not used in Sprint’s network, Dotson said, despite having been tested and evaluated by Sprint.

"We added [White Rock] primarily to enhance our portfolio for non-Sprint customers," Dotson said.

Sprint chose White Rock’s VLX2020 OC-48/OC-192 ADMs on the basis of their cost-effectiveness, the space-saving benefits of their comparably compact size and their relatively low power consumption.

"[Sprint North Supply] decided that what they’re hearing from their customers is that they need a next-generation product," said a White Rock spokesperson.

SNS also distributes gear from Adtran, Advanced Fibre Networks, Redback Networks and Telect.

White Rock has OEM partnerships with companies including Tellabs (which integrate White Rock gear with their own products), and it has a distribution agreement with a federal government services company, but SNS is the first company to distribute White Rock’s products to carriers.