Eight vendors were smiling at the announcement of the list of suppliers for BTs NGN network. The market is worth some $ 19bn over next five years and includes access, transport, routing, signaling and management. The list includes some surprises and gives some strong footprint in the European market to some well-known suppliers. Cisco (supplier of routers) gained one of its more valuable references in Europe with an incumbent operator. Ciena (a supplier for optical electronics) also gained strong inroads in a large telecom account in Europe, at the expense of Marconi. Another big surprise is Huawei, which got its better reference in Europe, and will supply access and transport gear. But the company which has miss the train is Marconi Former strong supplier to BT, it is not in the list, and this already highlights current difficulties in the company. Workforce cutting and even independence could be soon programmed. Huawei is already presented as a possible predator. Other suppliers (Alcatel, Ericsson, Fujitsu and Siemens) were already in the place and to find them in the list does not constitute a surprise, but surely they are pleased of the result.
