Qwest’s FTTN rollout winds down for winter

Though most large carriers have probably determined their spending budgets for 2009, Stanton said, the fact isn’t necessarily a dependable indication of next year’s actual spending environment. “This year we saw larger carriers shifting [spending] quarter to quarter because they modified their near-term plans within those budgets,” he said. “So you can’t assume that’s what’s going to happen because [budgets] are set for 2009.”

In addition to a widely reported cautiousness in spending among tier-one carriers, Adtran also reported seeing similar behavior start to spread among tier-two carriers recently, echoing comments made by another equipment vendor, Ciena, last week. Stanton called the tier-two spending scene a “mixed bag,” with only some carriers in that space pulling their purse strings.

Spending among enterprise customers doesn’t appear to be slowing, he said, adding that a slowdown may be occurring there, too, but not with enough magnitude to stall revenue growth.

“Some product lines – [including Adtran’s optical access gear, its Total Access 5000 platform and its Internetworking platform] -- didn’t see any slowdown as far as order activity, but you don’t know what they could have been if there wasn’t some sluggishness in the environment,” Stanton said.

However, the CEO acknowledged that the overall carrier spending slowdown may be at least partly to blame for the fact that Adtran’s Total Access 5000 product, while seeing record sales in the third quarter, has contributed only about 5% of the company’s overall revenue for the past six quarters or so.