Telecom equipment also called as Telecommunications equipment or communications equipment is hardware used for the purposes of telecommunications. The telecoms equipment and IT hardware are the major factors in the growth of the internet and its increasing role in the transfer of telecoms data. 

2 . Types of Telecom Equipments

There are 3 types of telecom equipments; they are public switching equipment, transmission equipment and customer premises equipment.

• Public switching equipment includes analogue switches and digital switches.
• Transmission equipment includes transmission lines such as Optical fiber, base transceiver stations, multiplexers, local loops and communications satellites.
• Customer premises equipment includes private switches, local area networks, modems, mobile phones, landline telephones, answering machines, teleprinters, fax machines, pagers and routers.

3 . Industry Overview

• The Telecommunications Equipment Industry produces technologies and services that are used to facilitate people's communication. Major products include cell phones, chipsets, wireless and landline infrastructure equipment, digital subscriber-line (DSL) and cable modems, and networking devices, such as routers and switches.
• The telecom equipment industry depends on purchases from businesses, telephone companies, cable companies, data communications providers, and TV and radio broadcasters. As per the reports given by Hoovers, about 80 percent of industry revenue comes from equipment for wireless communications which includes radio and TV and about 20 percent comes from equipment for line-based communications.
• As per the reports given by Telecom and Networking Communications Today, the Indian telecom equipment market is likely to grow at a CAGR of 10 percent to reach Rs. 188,700 crore i.e. USD 37 billion by 2020. 

4 . Telecom Equipment Industry Current Trends

As per the reports, the global telecom equipment market will grow at a CAGR of 3.6 percent over the period 2010-2014. Factors contributing to this market growth are mainly because of the increasing deployment of 3G and long-term evolution i.e. LTE networks. The Global Telecom Equipment market has also been witnessing the increasing popularity of Chinese equipment vendors. 

5 . Major Industry Players

Companies in telecom equipment industry manufactures equipments that are used in telephone, data, radio and TV broadcast, and wireless communications networks.

Some of the global telecom equipment industry players are Alcatel-Lucent Inc. in France, Ericsson Inc. in Sweden, Huawei Co. Ltd. in China, Nokia Siemens Networks Pvt. Ltd. in Finland, Samsung Networks Inc. in Korea, Apple, Cisco Systems, Motorola Solutions, and QUALCOMM all based in the US.