Alcatel beefs up DSLAM and makes two contract wins

Alcatel announced today that it has made cost reducing improvements to its 7300 Advanced Services Access Manager DSLAM and has taken steps to shorten deployment times. Alcatel also revealed two new access customers, Zhejiang Telecom of China and Australia’s Telstra.

Alcatel has added a “low profile” remote DSLAM and auto-configurable CPE to enable providers to dynamically configure the CO and modem/router, according to Jay Fausch, senior director of marketing for Alcatel’s broadband networking division.

Telstra is deploying Alcatel’s 7300 Advanced Services Access Manager (ASAM) in both metro and regional areas that are experiencing strong demand for high-speed access services. It is said to be a three-year, multi-million dollar deal.

The Zhejiang deployment involves 180,000 lines and follows an 80,000-line contract in May with Alcatel Shanghai Bell. Alcatel won the Zhejiang contract through Alcatel Shanghai Bell, of which Alcatel owns nearly a 50% stake.

“The enhancements we have made are based on customer requests,” Fausch said. “And they are aimed at two of the biggest issues customers have,” he said, referring to the need to have the right set of tools for remote areas and optimizing deployment times.

“In the past providers had to do configurations manually and hope that it would work,” Fausch said. “This eliminates the need for some field operations and a lot of the work happens automatically, which is a big cost savings for operations,” he said.