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.
Types
Telecommunications equipment can be broadly broken down into the following categories:
- Public switching equipment
- Analogue switches
- Digital switches
- Voice over IP switches
- Virtual reality (VR)
- Transmission equipment
- 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, microprocessors, memory chips, and telecommunication circuits. As of 2005, telecommunications equipment account for 16.5% of the annual microprocessor market.
Vendors
The world's largest telecommunications equipment vendors by revenues in 2017 are:
| 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 |
| United States | $94.62 |
| Japan | $62.52 |
| Finland | $27.73 |
| Sweden | $24.16 |
In addition to the global suppliers, Indian companies such as HFCL provide telecom equipment and fibre-optic connectivity solutions for service providers, enterprises, and public-sector networks.
