Tech Rumor of the Day: Alcatel-Lucent, Adtran

Some winners and losers are starting to emerge as AT&T (T Quote) pushes its plan to narrow its equipment supplier list.

To better focus its tech strategy, the Dallas-based phone colossus is cutting its list of vendors from about 150 companies to somewhere around 40. The intent is to have primary suppliers and secondary suppliers for about 15 product categories.

Making or not making the list of the biggest-spending U.S. telco -- its capital spending budget for this year is $17.5 billion -- can be a momentous event for some gearmakers.

The envelope please.

Winner for biggest overall opportunity is Alcatel-Lucent (ALU Quote), says Jefferies & Co. analyst George Notter, in a research note Monday.

This would have seemed to be a difficult job to lose, given that Lucent effectively built AT&T's entire old-line phone system as a unit of Ma Bell. But Alcatel-Lucent has fallen in stature, and is not necessarily considered a front-runner on next-generation technology.

On the wireless side, Alcatel-Lucent also managed to hang on to the secondary supplier slot, as Ericsson (ERIC Quote) appears to have the primary position all locked up.

The biggest loser in the AT&T bakeoff is Adtran (ADTN Quote), according to Jefferies. The tech specialist has a good grip on AT&T's high-speed digital subscriber line or HDSL gear, but it stands to lose out in the optical race to Fujitsu and Alcatel-Lucent.

Some other losers include Tellabs (TLAB Quote), which has struggled to modernize its old phone switch business. "We're assuming that Tellabs won't be named as a strategic vendor in any of AT&T's product domains -- nor do we think investors expect that," the Jefferies note says.