Ericsson is fulfilling its North American wireline dreams as AT&T named the Swedish vendor as one of its main suppliers under its newly-created “Domain Supplier” program.
This comes after reports emerged in June that AT&T wanted to reduce its telecom vendor list. Through this program, Ericsson will be eligible to supply full system solutions for AT&T's wireline access network, including IP/DSLAMs and Fiber to the X platforms.
Last Friday, AT&T revealed that its “Domain Supplier” program will consist of 14 network categories. Right now, the only category that AT&T has identified is wireline access. Under this plan, AT&T will select and pre-quality two vendors for each domain.
Ericsson said in a press release that with its GPON gear set for “general deployment, AT&T will now embark on integrating Ericsson's DSL portfolio for Fiber to the Node (FTTN) and IP DSLAM solutions to support AT&T's U-verse offerings, such as IPTV, High Speed Internet and VoIP over an all IP network infrastructure.”
Getting AT&T's preferred supplier designation provides some much-needed validation for Ericsson's North American access business ambitions. In 2007, the Swedish company purchased Entrisphere to get a piece of AT&T's GPON business.
However, Ericsson has not seen a lot of activity at AT&T. Meanwhile, it has garnered some other GPON deals in other countries including Armenia, China, India and Nigeria. While gaining preferred status is a positive step for Ericsson, AT&T said it does not guarantee it will get their business.
For more:
- see the Ericsson release here
- here's AT&T's "domain supplier" release