Telecommunications equipment

Telecommunications equipment (also telecoms equipment or communications equipment) is a type of hardware which is 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.^[1][2]

Smartphones are one of the most popular telecoms equipment.

Types

Telecommunications equipment can be broadly broken down into the following categories:^[3]

• Public switching equipment
  • Analogue switches
  • Digital switches
    • Voice over IP switches
    • Virtual reality (VR)
• Transmission equipment
  • Transmission lines
    • Optical fiber
    • Local loops
  • Base transceiver stations
  • Free-space optical communication
    • Laser communication in space
  • Multiplexers
  • Communications satellites
• Customer premises equipment (CPE)
  • Customer office terminal
  • Private switches
  • Local area networks (LANs)
  • Modems
  • Mobile phones
  • Landline telephones
  • Answering machines
  • Teleprinters
  • Fax machines
  • Pagers
  • Routers
  • Wireless devices

Semiconductors

Most of the essential elements of modern telecommunication are built from MOSFETs (metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistors), including mobile devices, transceivers, base station modules, routers, RF power amplifiers,^[4] microprocessors, memory chips, and telecommunication circuits.^[5] As of 2005, telecommunications equipment account for 16.5% of the annual microprocessor market.^[6]

Vendors

The world's largest telecommunications equipment vendors by revenues in 2017 are:^[7]

Largest vendors by 2017 revenue (billion US dollars)

Huawei	$92.55
Cisco Systems	$48.00
Ciena	$38.57
Nokia	$27.73
ECI Telecom	$24.16
NEC Corporation	$23.95
Qualcomm	$22.297
ZTE	$16.71
Corning	$10.12
Motorola Solutions	$6.38
Juniper Networks	$5.03

Largest by country (2017)

United States	$94.62
Japan	$62.52
Finland	$27.73
Sweden	$24.16

See also

• Networking hardware
• List of networking hardware vendors
• List of telephone switches
• Network equipment provider

References

1. "Telecoms equipment - We have the technology". The Economist. 1 October 1998. Retrieved 21 July 2012.
2. "Twisted pair - Nokia and Siemens pool their network divisions to form a new firm". The Economist. 22 June 2006. Retrieved 21 July 2012.
3. Ypsilanti, Dimitri; Plantin, Amy (1991). Telecommunications Equipment: Changing Markets and Trade Structures. OECD Publishing. p. 16. ISBN 9789264135536.
4. Asif, Saad (2018). 5G Mobile Communications: Concepts and Technologies. CRC Press. pp. 128–134. ISBN 9780429881343.
5. Colinge, Jean-Pierre; Greer, James C. (2016). Nanowire Transistors: Physics of Devices and Materials in One Dimension. Cambridge University Press. p. 2. ISBN 9781107052406.
6. Asthana, Rajiv; Kumar, Ashok; Dahotre, Narendra B. (2006). Materials Processing and Manufacturing Science. Elsevier. p. 488. ISBN 9780080464886.
7. "Telecommunication equipment companies ranked by overall revenue in 2017 (in billion U.S. dollars)". Statista.com. Retrieved August 8, 2019.