The tough go shopping

It's somewhat suprising to view a mainstream consumer Web site such as WashingtonPost.com and see an advertisement for Nortel's 9500 multiservice edge router. (You might have seen it too, the chassis pictured in the ad jumping forward whenever your cursor passed over it.) But this newly increased level of visibility for telecom and optical communications gear only adds to the growing crescendo of new products across various sectors being introduced in the run-up to a Supercomm that is already shaping up to be much livelier those of the past few years.

I remember all too well the trade shows of 2003 (yes, this is what passes for nostalgia in an age when the History Channel airs "I Love the 90s"), when Lucent executives told me any announcements they'd make in the foreseeable future would involve new customers, not new products. Today Lucent is trumpeting the addition of Ethernet service packs to its DMX access muxes and new Ethernet support in its DDM-2000 Sonet muxes; yesterday it unveiled a new edge device. Lucent is only one of a long list of vendors showcasing new gear at the show or new support for Ethernet and other next-gen services. FTTP vendors such as Wave7 Optics and WorldWide Packets are showing new products. Tellabs and Alcatel have new crossconnect offerings. Still more vendors will be showing off factory-fresh multiservice edge gear and customer premises equipment (some of whom I can't name yet).

"When the going gets tough, the tough go shopping," the T-shirts say. It certainly hasn't been true of the telecom industry these past few years, but it may ring true today. For service provider representatives at Supercomm, Chicago's McCormick place is likely to boast more shopping options than two Texas Wal-Marts conjoined. The question is whether attendees will opt to shop or just browse.

E-mail me at egubbins@primediabusiness.com.