From...

February 4, 2000
Web posted at: 11:14 a.m. EDT (1114 GMT)

by Jennifer Jones

(IDG) -- Nortel Networks on Thursday trumpeted the newfound success of its broadband access platform, playing up recent revenues and staking claim to an emerging broadband market -- the residential multiple dwelling unit, or MDU.

Sales of its Shasta 5000 Broadband Service Node (BSN) are closing in on key broadband competitors such as Redback, according to Keerti Melkote, Nortel's director of product management for the Shasta IP Services Business Unit.

The company -- in designating 2000 as "the year of value-added IP broadband services" -- also held out its first MDU win. Nortel has locked up a deal with Boston-based broadband access provider BroadbandNow, mostly to wire apartment buildings around the country with cable and DSL Internet access. Nortel and others now see MDU business as a cornerstone in the U.S. broadband rollout.

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The company also announced that it has put in place a new upgrade program for service providers. Dubbed "Intelligent Services," the program dangles a one-for-one platform replacement option before service providers, many of which are right now looking to build out broadband offerings with service add-ons, Melkote said.

Nortel claims its Shasta 5000 BSN for aggregated DSL or cable offers services such as network-based firewalls, virtual private networking, and traffic engineering for several thousand subscribers over a single chassis.

"[The Intelligent Services program] is especially designed for the service provider looking to ease into a transition to second-generation broadband technology. They are now realizing that the longer they wait, the more they will have to forklift to a new level," Melkote said.

Although Nortel will not reveal its own sales figures, the company's Shasta 5000-related figures have rolled in at 20 percent above expected margins and are nearing Redback's proclaimed $26 million annual sales figure, Melkote said.