Fergie's Tech Blog

Alcatel Bumps Cisco Out of $300M Voice/Data Network Upgrade Bid

Phil Hochmuth writes on NetworkWorld:

Reviewing purchase orders for the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center's recently announced $300 million net upgrade, one might think the organization was quitting healthcare to become a telco carrier.

That's not in UPMC's plans, of course. What is scheduled for the next four years is the installation of a carrier-class optical and edge MPLS network from Alcatel, with converged, high-speed IP voice and data services extending all the way down to the organization's 66,000 end users.

The deal is France-based Alcatel's largest enterprise transaction in North America, and will involve the retirement of thousands of Cisco switches and routers, hundreds of PBX systems, and thousands of digital phones from Avaya, Nortel, Siemens and other vendors.

posted by Fergie @ 11/13/2006 05:10:00 PM