In the wake of Telia AB’s cancellation of its L M Ericsson Telefon AB Synchronous Digital Hierarchy equipment contract last autumn, a mini-survey of the French, Belgian and Italian markets showed Ericsson also having trouble gaining acceptance of the transmission equipment by other operators. Of the three, France Telecom, Belgacom and Telecom Italia, only France Telecom is still testing the Ericsson kit. The other two have chosen different suppliers – Siemens AG and Marconi Ltd. All three have begun installing the optical equipment in pilot projects or as part of network upgrade programmes. For the first phase of its three-part programme, Belgacom considered transmission kit from Ericsson, Northern Telecom Ltd, Philips Electronics NV, Siemens and Alcatel NV-AT&T Corp, choosing Siemens (SDM16, SDM4, A-drop multiplexers 4 & 16, digital cross connects). Although Belgacom had no previous history of buying from Siemens, its previous 34Mbps fibre-optic transmission technology came from a GTE Corp unit in Milan that Siemens bought two years ago, said Bernard Daspremont, transmission engineer at Belgacom. Phase one, which ends in 1997, is to move our long-distance circuits to SDH, said Daspremont. The second phase, which starts this year, will be to multiplex 2Mbps loops to 155Mbps. Phase three aims to use A-Drop multiplexers to bring the regional network to 2.5Gbps in metropolitan areas. Less populated regions will get 155Mbps or 622Mbps. Belgacom will spend around $740m for phase one alone, he said. For its three pilot Synchronous Digital Hierarchy projects in long-distance and urban network lines in Rome, Torino and the Veneto region, Telecom Italia SpA is using Alcatel Telettra, Italtel, Siemens and Marconi kit – the exclusion of Ericsson is surprising, given its historic role as one of Telecom Italia’s principal switch suppliers. France Telecom began installing SDH insertion/extraction multiplexers from TRT/Philips and SAT/Siemens after a test in April 1994, as part of a $23,000m, six-year network modernisation initiative. Installation is scheduled for completion in 1997. Quite recently, it launched a request for proposals for a third supplier of multiplexers, and has shortlisted SAT/Siemens, Alcatel, Nokia, CS Telecom/ECI (Israel), and TRT/Philips, said a researcher at the National Centre for Telecommunications Research. The centre is in the final phases of a test of cross-connect equipment, including Ericsson kit. Less than two months remain, during which time the technicians expect to encounter some of the most important technical hurdles, the researcher said. Although he noted some anomalies with Ericsson’s equipment with respect to the 200-page SDH standard specifications, They are not the only ones that have… everyone is at about the same level, technologically. With Ericsson, there are no major flaws, although we are not, of course, finished, he said. The researcher said that the centre would like to know why Telia cancelled its contract, as they saw no particular reason for it. He noted that other operators, including the German and Swiss PTTs, had experienced problems with Ericsson, adding some operators make their decisions without looking at things too closely. Telia remained vague about why the operator cancelled the contract simply saying it did not deliver the equipment as we wanted.
