That's according to market watcher Infonetics Research, which says that demand for Cisco's IP core and edge routing solutions increased markedly (on a year-over-year basis) in Q1. "Cisco is on a roll, bumping up their service provider IP core and edge router revenue by 6 percent in the first quarter of 2010 compared to the previous quarter, and up 33 percent compared to the first quarter of 2009," said Infonetics analyst Michael Howard, in a statement.

Cisco isn't just the beneficiary of a rising tide -- while some players did improve their showings, others (such as Alcatel-Lucent and Huawei) turned in worse-than-expected performances. "Smaller players Tellabs and NEC posted gains in the IP router segment, while many other vendors, notably Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson and Huawei, posted revenue declines. Both Alcatel-Lucent and Ericsson noted supply problems with components and parts," Howard said.

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What's more, Cisco's strong performance came during what is traditionally a down quarter for carrier Ethernet solutions, according to Infonetics. For example, global sales of IP edge routers, IP core routers, carrier Ethernet switches and multiservice ATM switches were off by 5 percent in Q1, relative to the fourth quarter of 2009. That was expected. What wasn't expected was Cisco's strong showing. The industry as a whole was up, year-over-year, from its Q1 2009 performance; Cisco, however, obliterated its competitors in year-over-year sales: its 33 percent increase (relative, again, to 2009) was more than double the industry average (which topped out at 14 percent).

From Cisco's perspective, the carrier-grade equipment segment has all but recovered. Most of its competitors -- even Alcatel-Lucent and Huawei (who blamed their poorer showings on parts shortages) -- would probably agree, too.

After all, while overall sales were down, sequentially, from Q4 of 2009 to the first quarter of this year, some market segments nonetheless bucked this trend: in North America, for example, sales of carrier routers and switches actually inched up a bit, growing by 1.5 percent in Q1. It might not seem like a lot, but demand for carrier-grade switches and routers positively exploded in the final quarter of last year, growing by nearly 20 percent. Or, to put it another way, Q1's 1.5 percent sequential increase represents a 19.5 improvement from the third quarter of 2009; moreover, North American sales of carrier-grade routers and switches were up by almost one-third (29 percent) year over year.

That good news was confined strictly to North America.

Globally, sales of carrier Ethernet switches, in particular, grew demonstrably (by 8 percent) between the end of last year and the first quarter of this year, and were up even more (by 22 percent) on a year-over-year basis.
--By Stephen Swoyer