Alcatel-Lucent raises the IP router market bar

Cisco and Juniper may have long dominated the edge and core routing market segments, but it's hard to ignore the progress Alcatel-Lucent is making. While the legacy Alcatel was a relative newcomer to the routing market when it bought out the former TiMetra Networks in 2003, Dell'Oro revealed that now Alcatel-Lucent in its Q3 2009 Routers Report increased its marketshare 4 percentage points year-over-year. One notable sub-segment growth area for Alcatel-Lucent was the edge router market where it gained 4.8 percentage points year-over-year.

Interestingly, Alcatel-Lucent increased its year-to-date revenue share to 20 percent during what has been one of the harshest worldwide economic recessions. Dell'Oro attributes this growth to three main factors: "an expanded customer base, regional balance and a broad product line."

A particular area of focus for Alcatel-Lucent has been on enhancing its edge routing product line with 100 Gbps capabilities, an effort that continues to resonate with the carrier community. Since launching this product enhancement in July, the company has signed up various customers including Cox, Equinix and Qwest. Qwest, for one, will deploy the Alcatel-Lucent 7750 router to extend 100 Gbps capabilities to customer edge sites.

For more:
- see the Alcatel-Lucent release here

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