Cisco Deal Deflates Alcatel

Cisco (CSCO Quote) landed AT&T (T Quote) as a customer for key Net infrastructure, dealing a big blow to Alcatel-Lucent (ALU Quote) and Juniper (JNPR Quote).

Cisco said Monday that AT&T has chosen its carrier routing system, or CRS-1 equipment, to upgrade the telecom company's Internet backbone in 25 major cities. These so-called core routers manage huge volumes of traffic at major network junction points.

The deal with the largest U.S. telco advances Cisco's dominance as the leading Internet equipment supplier and hands some unwelcome news to rival Juniper. ...