Nortel wins latest contract with Telia

NEWS Swedish telco Telia has denied it is dissatisfied with the progress of a $62m of contract it awarded Cisco Systems at the beginning of the year, even as it emerged this week it has now turned to Nortel Networks for telecoms network equipment. Paul Brandwood, marketing director for Nortel's carrier data business, said the Canadian supplier had beaten "some existing manufacturers" to win the first of a three phase deal to build a brand new network. It will supply Passport 15000 multiservice switches. "We were chosen for our ability to launch the service rapidly," he told Silicon.com. Nortel hasn't revealed the value of the contract. However, Jan-Morten Ruud, senior vice president, Telia, said: "The [Nortel and Cisco] contracts are not connected. For building out our IP networks, which will carry both data and voice, we will always use several vendors. We will never have a one vendor strategy." Cisco declined to comment. Telia is not saying which of its established suppliers has lost out, but the spotlight falls again on long-time equipment provider Ericsson. Earlier this week, Telia announced it will spend five billion kronor ($612m) on network expansion in Europe and the US. It aims to control thousands of miles of fibre to offer bandwidth to Internet service providers and other IP carriers. The expansion will build on Telia's merger with Norwegian telco Telenor. A video interview on this subject with Telia's Jan-Morten Ruud can be seen on http://www.silicon.com/a29372