Telecommunications equipment (also telecoms equipment or communications equipment) is hardware used for the purposes of telecommunications. Since the 1990s the boundary between telecoms equipment and IT hardware has become blurred as a result of the growth of the internet and its increasing role in the transfer of telecoms data.
Types
Telecommunications equipment can be broadly broken down into the following categories:
- Public switching equipment
- Analogue switches
- Digital switches
- Transmission equipment
- Transmission lines
- Optical fiber
- Base transceiver stations
- Multiplexers
- Local loops
- Communications satellites
- Transmission lines
- Customer premises equipment
- Private switches
- Local area networks
- Modems
- Mobile phones
- Landline telephonesli>
- Answering machines
- Teleprinters
- Fax machines
- Pagers
- Routers
Vendors
The world's five largest telecommunications equipment (ex. mobile phone handsets) vendors measured by applicable 2013 revenues are:
- Ericsson
- Huawei
- Alcatel-Lucent
- Nokia
- ZTE
The world's five largest router and switch vendors measured by applicable revenues in the second quarter of 2013 are:
- Cisco Systems
- Huawei
- Alcatel-Lucent
- Juniper Networks
- ZTE
The world's 10 largest mobile phone handset vendors measured by unit sales in the second quarter of 2013 are (global market share shown in parentheses):
- Samsung (24.7%)
- Microsoft Mobile (14.0%)
- Apple (7.3%)
- LG Electronics (3.9%)
- ZTE (3.5%)
- Huawei (2.6%)
- Lenovo (2.5%)
- TCL (2.3%)
- Sony Mobile Communications (2.2%)
- Yulong (1.8%)
As of 2014 many of the largest telecoms networking equipment vendors are struggling financially due to over supply, rising market share of China-based vendors, and declining revenues for 2G and 3G networks not being fully offset by the growing market for 4G equipment.
See also
- Networking hardware