The worldwide multiservice switches market is dominated by Lucent, Alcatel, Nortel and Cisco, with their marketshares varying quarter to quarter between 20-30 percent each.

In India, however there are two major players in this segment—Alcatel and Tellabs. The other two major dominant players seem to be not focusing on this segment in India. India has been traditionally an incumbent operator market as far as this segment is concerned. However, with private telcos also set to implement data services, all four major vendors are likely to pursue the opportunities.

The metro Ethernet market is a fairly new market worldwide, with players like Force 10, Extreme and Fore Networks being strong contenders to overall switch giants Cisco, Enterasys, 3Com and Nortel. In India, companies from other non-US markets are also in the news for Ethernet products. Atree Networks from Taiwan had sold some switches to BSES Telecom which is operating an metro Ethernet service. And, Atricia an Israeli company was recently rumored to be near striking a metro Ethernet deal with Reliance Infocomm.

EXPERTS PANEL Sanjay Badri, vice president, Finolex Cables Ltd Umrao Khivsara, CFO, Aksh Optifiber