Comtek Lab Offers Lifeline For Old Nortel Equipment

Repair company Comtek is offering a green alternative to legacy Nortel equipment after it opened a state of the art telecoms repair lab within its UK headquarters in Deeside, North Wales.

The new lab offers a vital lifeline for Nortel customers and their equipment, after Nortel went bankrupt in early 2009 and its various business units were sold off to the likes of Ericsson, Avaya, and Ciena, among others.

“We knew Nortel was in trouble in 2009 and we launched a repair plan and built the infrastructure to do that,” Askar Sheibani, CEO of Comtek, told eWEEK Europe. “Comtek is a very green company, and we reached an agreement with the Nortel administrator in Germany, as they had a very sophisticated training lab infrastructure in Munich that was full of the highest possible end-of-technology Nortel products.”

Saved From The Skip

“The administrator had emptied the building and was going to scrap the whole infrastructure and equipment, worth $70 million,” Sheibani said. “They were going to bin it, but we rescued all those products and commissioned a new training lab, and imported all that Nortel equipment in eight, forty-foot containers.”

“We have now created one of the most sophisticated Nortel Labs in Europe, and we can support, repair and operate all Nortel equipment, from carrier switches through to optical products,” said Sheibani. “No other company in Europe can offer that full support for Nortel equipment.”

It will also provide training facilities for Comtek’s growing-number of engineers.

But surely this just guarentees Comtek a slice of a diminishing market?

Sheibani doesn’t think so and points out that its actions have meant that Comtek not only can meet the needs of a great number of companies which are looking to repair rather than replace their equipment, but that it also benefits the environment – as Comtek has saved over 300 tonnes of equipment from being unnecessarily sent to landfills in the past year alone.

A Green Extended Life

Sheibani said that Comtek has saved valuable products destined for scrap, and turned them into jobs and new training labs. Over the last two months, Comtek has actively recruited ten new staff members in preparation for the opening and expects to take on a further 15 engineers, as well as a number of apprentices, over the course of the next couple of months to meet the demand for its services.

“Yes in certain market technology changes very quickly but in the vast majority of cases, Nortel equipment is used for a very long time,” said Sheibani. “A lot of Nortel equipment is used for example in developing countries and they are not in a position to upgrade, but they still need support.”

Indeed, since launching its repair service for telecoms equipment over a year ago, Comtek has seen an increase in demand for support services of this kind, most notably for legacy and end-of-life equipment that faces reduced or withdrawn technical support.

“The withdrawal of support for Nortel equipment has had a serious impact on carriers around the world – the majority of who have built their network infrastructure on Nortel’s hardware,” said  Brindarjit Gill, a former Nortel engineer. “If a piece of equipment malfunctions, simply replacing it with a product from an alternative manufacturer could lead to serious and far-reaching network compatibility issues. Indeed, the knock-on effect could see whole networks compromised – which is why the ability to maintain legacy equipment is so important.”

VAT Ban On IT Repairs

Comtek’s Sheibani is also associated with another worthy green project. Earlier this year he campaigned for a petition calling for a tax incentive to kickstart a new green repair industry, arguing that manufacturers are killing the repair business in order to drive new sales.

They had tried to ensure a zero-VAT incentive on repairs to encourage businesses to reduce the country’s carbon footprint, by repairing and extending the life of existing equipment.

So how did it go?

“We are trying to change the throwaway mindset,” said Sheibani. “We asked for zero VAT on repairs, and I wrote to Ministers (both Labour and the new Coalition), and the response was mind blowing. I received a two line letter as a response from a Minister, saying that ‘we have the WEEE directive and this is the website.’”

But Sheibani has vowed not to give up and the next step is to take the issue to Parliament and then the European Parliament. “As we get more and more support, we will get stronger and stronger,” he said.