Alcatel sets sights on U.S. market

Long a worldwide force as an optical vendor, Alcatel’s efforts today are focused primarily at increasing its market share in the United States, a company official said today at the Optical Fiber Conference in Anaheim, Calif.

According to RHK, Nortel and Alcatel own 23% and 20% of the global optical transport market, while Lucent is third at 11%. But Alcatel has less than 5% of the rich U.S. market, which means the company has significant room to grow, according to Karl Traberg, director of marketing requirements for Alcatel’s terrestrial networks division.

“We need to grow more in the U.S.,” he said. “The reason we’re not number one globally is that Nortel is strong in the U.S., particularly in 10 GB Sonet and long-haul DWDM.”

Through its acquisitions of DSC and Newbridge, Alcatel has fostered relationships with RBOCs and major U.S.-based IXCs that have helped improve the vendor’s presence in North America, Traberg said. Meanwhile, the company continues to reap rewards from its efforts outside the U.S. This should become more important as European carriers establish U.S. networks, he said.

“They can’t afford to deal with too many people as they build these networks,” Traberg said.

As a result, the company’s submarine business is flourishing. However, Traberg was quick to add that this business is just one component in Alcatel’s diverse suite of offerings.

“We’re competing against a lot of fine companies, but we believe we’re different because we provide a complete, end-to-end solution … and global reach,” Traberg said.

In the U.S., Traberg believes the key to Alcatel’s success in the long-haul market is carriers’ desire to be able to quickly provision bandwidth. To do this, many carriers—in particular, 360networks, which inked a deal with Alcatel last fall—are creating networks that feature 10-15 “superPOPs,” which creates a greater need for long-haul technology.

Despite the current capital crunch in the telecom industry, building such networks makes economic sense to carriers, according to Traberg. Currently, it takes months to provision bandwidth, while the superPOP concept will allow provisioning to be done in days.

“Actually, we’re doing really well,” Traberg said. “Naturally, there’s some concern … but the demand for bandwidth is still up.”

In addition, capacity gains are realized by this design, because it avoids the current situation of weaving traffic through 20 to 30 Sonet rings in a cross-country scenario, he added.

“We see the sweet spot in the network as being about 3000 kilometers.”