Alca-Lu ships over 1mil GPON ports

Kit vendor Alcatel-Lucent may be in the middle of an onerous cost-cutting programme amid continued quarterly losses, but its network equipment division continues to perform well: the company has revealed that it sold over one million GPON ports in the second quarter of this year, driven by rapid expansion of its business in China and the US.

Describing this milestone as an all-time high for Alcatel-Lucent, the company cites recent successes in this area as including GPON contracts with China Telecom, Oi (Brazil), Telkom South Africa and Vivacom (Bulgaria).

Alcatel-Lucent’s Intelligent Services Access Manager (ISAM) family has so far been deployed by more than 250 service providers around the world, and includes more than 160 FTTH projects (encompassing EPON, GPON and point-to-point fibre).

The company is in the process of cutting €1.25bn in costs and 5,000 jobs by the end of next year, and earlier this month revealed a number of further details on its Performance Program, including a new operating model which focuses on core products, a new business group called Networks & Platforms, and a reshuffle of its leadership team.

However, the company has still not spelled out exactly what will be the core products it plans to focus on, and which business areas it plans to exit: networks and platforms will undoubtedly be part of its core focus, but its plans for the TV market (for example) are as yet unknown.