Nortel makes overseas contract announcements

Nortel Networks yesterday announced a metro optical contract with the Shanghai Stock Exchange and the Statistics Administration of China as the vendor giant continues to gain traction in the fast-growing China market.

The Shanghai Stock Exchange has deployed Nortel’s OPTera Metro 5200 to link its three major business sites, while the Statistics Administration is using the solution to connect two LAN sites in Beijing to accelerate the distribution of statistical data.

“Nortel Networks hopes to continue its close relationship with a wide range of industries in China to deploy advanced and reliable solutions and provide an essential foundation for growth of China’s information industry,” said Nortel Networks China President and CEO Robert Mao in a statement.

Indeed, the deal is Nortel’s second contract announcement in the last week. Nortel also recently revealed that China’s wireline incumbent China Telecom will deploy Nortel’s next-generation Succession switching solution in the large cities of Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen during the next three months.

The contract reflects Nortel’s continued success in the next-gen voice space, attributable to the fact that the vendor has the only next-gen packet voice switch that has been proved on the networks of large established carriers, according to Jenna Stanley, Nortel’s director of carrier VoIP marketing.

Unlike its high-profile U.S. contracts with the local exchange arms of Qwest Communications and Sprint, the China Telecom contract was secured without the benefit of Nortel being the incumbent switch vendor for the carrier.

“We’re not a strong incumbent vendor in terms of voice switching,” Stanley said. “This is an entirely new facet of our relationship with China Telecom.”

Also in the realm of packet switching, service provider Connex will use Nortel softswitches and multiservice switches to build a converged network in Romania to support the carrier’s wireless operations. According to Nortel, the deal marks the first time a wireless carrier has used the G729 voice-compression standard and the first deployment of the Succession solution in a live 2G wireless network.

“Nortel Networks has supplied us with the technology that will mean Connex will be better placed to deploy new services from current 2G networks through to future 2.5 and 3G networks,” said Connex Chief Technology Officer Vishant Vora in a statement released M