$1 billion here, $1 billion there

Lucent reels in FTTH network deal As a follow-up to Lucent Technologies' $1 billion deal with SBC Communications announced Oct. 5, the equipment provider won a $1 billion contract with WINfirst, a service provider building a fiber-to-the-home residential network in the southwestern and western regions of the U.S.

In addition to a slew of hardware solutions - some of which Lucent designed and built specifically for WINfirst - the five-year pact stipulates that Lucent will provide software and network design, integration and installation through its NetworkCare service. The equipment provider worked with WINfirst to build an architecture that would allow the service provider to deliver 100 Mb/s worth of capacity using IP and fast Ethernet to each home on the network, said John Slevin, vice president and general manager of fiber and hybrid fiber/coax access for Lucent.

WINfirst will purchase $800 million worth of equipment from Lu-cent and $200 million from Avaya, Lucent's former enterprise networks group. Included in the deal are the NX64000 multi-terabit switch router, which comes from Lucent's acquisition of Nexabit Networks; the GX 550 multiservice WAN switch from Ascend; Spring Tide Network's 5000 IP Service Switch; and Lucent's 7R/E packet solution. WINfirst also will deploy Avaya's Cajun P880 routing switches (see figure).

Lucent designed and developed a network demarcation unit and residential Ethernet gateway for WINfirst. The network demarcation unit attaches to the outside of a customer's home to terminate the fiber connection and uses a laser to send and receive voice, data and video traffic; the gateway is in the home and connects to the customer's PC and telephone.

WINfirst's plans validate what Lucent has long believed, Slevin said. "We've been talking about evolving to an all-IP network on a variety of fronts - IP over cable, gigabit IP and packet-based services over DSL. This validates that the market is ready to move that way," he said.

Giving customers 100 Mb/s will be like "putting a 747 into every-one's garage," said Shiraz Moosajee, vice president of business development for WINfirst."We'll be able to offer everything that's available today but in a bigger and better fashion," he said. From telephony services and cable TV services to video-on-demand, WINfirst plans to offer services that "make people's lives better," Moosajee said.

"Personally, I like dynamic video enabled on my PC," he said."With 100 Mb/s dedicated to each home, there's probably a lot more that you could do with it that we haven't even thought of."

WINfirst has broken ground in Sacramento and plans to have services operating by the second quarter of next year. From there, the provider plans to continue with deployment as fast as the market demands, Moosajee said. In addition to Sacramento, WINfirst has regulatory approval to build in Dallas, Houston, San Antonio and Austin, Texas; and San Diego. Portland, Ore.; Los Angeles; San Francisco and Oakland, Calif.; Las Vegas; and Seattle also are in the company's blueprints.

By building out FTTH, WINfirst is trying to future-proof its network, said Christin Flynn, program manager for The Yankee Group. "It's one thing to replace equipment in your [network operations center], but it's another thing to go out to every single home," she said.

Lucent could be doing some future-proofing of its own by developing a strong relationship with WINfirst in the face of its recent troubles. In developing the network demarcation unit and the residential gateway, Lucent went "out of its way" to make sure WIN-first was considered a partner, not just a customer, Flynn said.

However, the company's recent contract wins have not been in the optical space, where it has been losing ground to Nortel Networks, which last week won a $1 billion deal with Aerie Networks. Nortel will provide equipment from its OPTera portfolio for Aerie's nationwide broadband network.

"Every organization has struggles. Maybe they will pull out of it. Maybe they won't. I think they will," said Flynn. "But they have got to make some changes internally."