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In the turbulent world of wireless and converged infrastructure, the spotlight has been firmly on Huawei this year. The Chinese firm is leveraging its economies of scale, financing capabilities and now its rapid progress in next generation networks (LTE and WiMAX) to pose a serious challenge for number two position in the market, and even Ericsson cannot sleep easily. The week started with mixed news for Huawei - an aggressive statement of its patent position in LTE, followed by talk of India barring Chinese suppliers from telecoms deals. And the billion-dollar question - as AT&T finally announced its list of preferred equipment suppliers, anointing Ericsson in its wireline access unit, has Huawei made it to a tier one US carrier's roster yet?

AT&T has, as promised earlier this year, reduced the number of equipment vendors on which it will rely, selecting two preferred suppliers for each of 14 'domains' or business areas. So far, it has remained tightlipped on the identities of its favorites, with one exception - Ericsson is boasting of taking one slot in the AT&T landline division. This is a huge boost for the Swedish giant in two areas where it has traditionally struggled to make impact - the north American territory and wireline networks. The company has made major progress in the former this year, gaining part of Verizon Wireless' high profile LTE award and a massive outsourcing deal with Sprint Nextel; and its position will be further boosted by its acquisition of Nortel's CDMA and LTE technologies and customer base. Now it has increased its AT&T position with the selection for AT&T's Wireline Access products and services, where it will have to compete with the other, unnamed vendor to get its DSL products for FTTN (fiber to the node) and IP DSLAM into the carrier's U-verse system. AT&T has previously approved Ericsson's GPON fiber to the home platform and Ericsson sources said the fact the firm had press released the broadband access deal did not mean it had been excluded from other AT&T domains.

The obvious one would be wireless access, where Ericsson has an existing relationship with AT&T. The Swedish firm will have a sharp eye on the operator's plan to extend and upgrade its HSPA network and to trial LTE from 2010, but will face fierce competition from Nokia Siemens, Alcatel-Lucent and potentially from Huawei. The Chinese firm has got itself onto the preferred supplier lists of several tier one carriers in developed markets, notably Vodafone in Europe, but has only made limited inroads into north America - notably its Clearwire WiMAX and Cox 3G deals. A position in AT&T would transform the perception of the vendor, but despite the value that Huawei brings an operator in terms of putting price pressure on other vendors, US giants have so far been wary.

But there have been indications that AT&T has been softening its stance. In May, a USB research note said that Huawei, Ericsson and ALU were shortlisted for the carrier's initial LTE trials, to be carried out next year, and the operator is likely to select two of these in the coming weeks.

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