The Telia AB executive in charge of its multi-service network project yesterday moved to reassure the market that its surprising decision to award a new backbone infrastructure contract to Nortel Networks did not signify that the project is seriously off course. We think we are at least half a year ahead of our competition, Jan Morten Ruud told Computerwire, and added that the driving force of the project is still towards IP.
Tuesday’s announcement that Nortel had been awarded a contract to build an ATM and Frame Relay backbone for the Swedish incumbent telco had asked serious questions of Telia’s ongoing relationship with Cisco Systems Inc, the San Jose router maker which had claimed its February award of a major provisioning contract by Telia was significant endorsement for IP in the core infrastructure of public service networks. For its own part Telia had never publicly stated that it would immediately build a pure IP infrastructure, and now its seems that, whether or not Telia had privately hoped to, it will be some time before IP displaces ATM and Frame Relay in the Swedish national infrastructure.
Indeed, according to Ruud, Telia’s vice president of network services, we have in our network a telephone network, based on telephone switches, we have a huge IP network, and we have a datacommunications network that is still contains X.25, X.21 and other older protocols. The long-term aim is still, if possible, to create a unified IP multi-service network infrastructure moving everything, including voice, over IP. But, Ruud said, that is a long job. It will take four to five years to do that.
Citing the need to preserve Telia’s competitive advantage Ruud declined to comment in detail on the events which lead to the late award of a backbone contract to Nortel. He also said that at the heart of the network, it will have more than one supplier. With Nortel extending its existing 10-year relationship as a data switch supplier to the telco, the company now has several major vendors involved in its multi-service network project, including Ericsson and Cisco.
Ruud added that Cisco’s participation in the project has not been seriously reduced. We are still working with Cisco, Cisco is still a very big supplier to this network. However, he did not deny that elements of the development project in which Cisco had been involved had been scrapped, although he did decline to comment on what these development efforts were and the extent of Cisco’s role in them.
