SBC’s faith in Nortel untarnished

Despite repeated bad news from Nortel Networks, SBC apparently is willing to overlook the vendor’s flaws. The provider has a long-standing relationship with Nortel that continues to deepen, as SBC announced a significant equipment deal on the same day Nortel cut 20,000 more jobs and played musical chairs with its CEO.

For now, Nortel will be the sole supplier of DWDM equipment for SBC’s metro deployments. SBC will use Nortel’s OPTera Metro 3000 Next Gen Sonet platform to help link things such as data centers and storage networks.

SBC’s willingness to ink a deal without a backup vendor is definitely a bonus for Nortel.

“We don’t see [their troubles] as a problem,” said Bob Walters, executive director of optical networks for SBC. “We have a good relationship with them and always stay on top of what’s going on.”

SBC is considering other vendors’ equipment, but Walters said the Nortel equipment met the RBOC’s current expectations while others didn’t.

“Nortel has demonstrated their commitment to DWDM and the metro area, and we have every faith that they will keep that up,” Walters said.