BT’s PBT Plans in Doubt

This is expected.

Nortel sales teams are too slow in pushing PBT beyond this single T1 customer. And even with BT, the PBT deployment is not huge. There is no mention to any specific dollars in any Nortel-BT annoucement because from day one, this PBT BT win looks too small. PBT is just a software feature on an aging Ethernet Routing Switch platform. Nortel does not support PBT on any other access or core product, hence they have to rely on the tier2 or teir3 eco-system to complement their PBT solution. Some of the ecosystem members may eat NT's lunch soon if they develop and end to end PBT offering.

Just wondering if the newly promoted Pangia sold any PBT in Asia before he gets this promotion?

http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp…
But a lot has changed at BT in the past year. The company reorganized itself, began an overhaul of its 21CN processes, and saw the departure of a number of key executives. (See BT Revamps, Creates New Units , Upheaval at BT's 21CN?, Green Leaves BT, Verwaayen Set to Leave BT, and Reynolds Leaving BT to Run TNZ.)
Now there's a new team making key network and technology decisions, and that's prompted a rethink about a number of issues, including the role of PBT in the 21CN, according to sources.
Those re-evaluations prompted BT to issue a new ITT (invitation to tender) for Ethernet technology about a month ago, which, according to industry sources, has a much greater emphasis on MPLS as the underlying network technology for the delivery of Ethernet services, and a decreased emphasis on PBT compared to previous ITTs.
If that is the outcome, it would be disappointing news for Nortel, PBT's chief tub-thumper, and a relief for the trio of MPLS equipment vendors involved in 21CN –
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Conclusion
We have seen hype and the burst of that PBT bubble the bubble made by Nortel’s propaganda!
It took 2 years for customers to finally figure it out!
Customers are very angry at vendors who misled them about PBT.
Read
http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?doc_id…
and
NT hyped PBT as low cost alternative solution to MPLS
but the real life_ implementation shows much higher cost at the end…than expected
What happened in Italy?
read and educate yourself… as Nortel is in trouble there..

The Future of Carrier Ethernet: Eastern Europe 2007 — Carriers looking into the potential of PBT (Provider Backbone Transport) are uncovering hidden costs related to the management of the emerging Carrier Ethernet technology, according to one of the speakers at Tuesday's Ethernet Expo event here in Poland. (See Ethernet Hits Warsaw and PBT: New Kid on the Metro Block.)

When asked about the relative costs of like-for-like MPLS and PBT metro network deployments, Phil Tilley, VP of marketing for the IP division of Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE: ALU – message board)'s Carrier Business Group, said “all the talk about PBT is hypothetical because no one knows how much it will cost to deploy once the control plane and management costs are added. The costs will start rising.”
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On paper the boxes are cheaper, but in an end-to-end solution we just don't know the cost,” said the AlcaLu man — whose company, while claiming to be technology agnostic, is experiencing significant success and market traction with its MPLS-based routers and is among PBT's main critics. (See AlcaLu: PBT Is Peripheral and AlcaLu Expands Alwan's Role.)

“Some carriers have looked at the cost with management and are rethinking the whole thing,” added Tilley, without identifying any operators.

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According to industry sources, BT has encountered some PBT service set-up problems in Italy, where it is deploying PBT initially using Nortel Networks Ltd. (NYSE/Toronto: NT – message board) Ethernet switches. BT is also believed to be finding that the costs associated with PBT deployments are not quite as attractive as first envisaged,

Many. great add. I totally agree with the last statement, well said.

PBT as technology is needed, and will for sure find supporters and adopters. The article talks about PBT cost savings. Most of PBT cost savings is OPEX (and yes it is much simpler than MPLS), but if the platform it runs on is not price competitive (CAPEX) this will put the whole business case in question. For NT as a vendor, I question the price competitiveness of the aging ERS platform. I also question the fact that only ERS supports PBT (what about other products on the access side?). PBT as a solution today is fragmented and Carriers need to go to multiple vendors to get the benefit. There is not single vendor who claim they have the whole story, so yes, it is still early to see full PBT deployments or large wins by a single vendor.

Commentator and ex-nortel. I battled the same issues when I was there many years ago. Despite what Phil and John Roese say in their blogs, there *still* is an NIH mentality when it comes to hardware at nortel, . In the early 1990's I could not believe that nortel insisted (for example) to re invent commodity hardware and firmware for existing platforms such as low end routing and NIC cards, when they were commercially available for less than we could make the powerpoint.

One point that I have to concede to certain product managers is that if nortel can (big if) deliver PBT/PBB on the existing installed base in a cost effective manner, then it makes sense to do that for existing carriers. Nortel has a large (and rapidly shrinking) installed base of Passport (for example). OTOH there is real savings in real estate, power and air conditioning with newer hardware and it is difficult to justify keeping the “big iron” in place. So in short, I concede the argument about “evergreen” hardware being a competitive advantage to a point, however I think for most carriers that point is past or about to pass.

Neptune was a disaster because there was too much money thrown at it. The result of too much money is always to bring all sorts of product manager vultures to the table to drag their ideas and products through. The result was a “god box” with no clear market focus or purpose at a very high cost.

Shasta was a decent idea ahead of its time, but the software was very unreliable (hardware not much better) and needed serious attention. Unfortunately Nortel's heavy handed management style drove anyone who knew anything about it out the door. So they were left to reverse engineer. Of course this could not be done in time to save the reputation of the product.

All that is ancient history, but it looks to me like the Nortel “Chief History Officer” is a co-op

This sounds like an echo of an earlier LightReading rumour that ended-up being refuted.