Juniper Networks, Inc. JNPR recently inked an agreement with UPC Poland to augment its network capabilities in order to cater to the exponential growth in customers and related data traffic demands in the Central European country. The improvement in infrastructure facilities is expected to reduce the complexity of the network while increasing the operational flexibility and efficiency of UPC Poland.

UPC Poland operates as a wholly owned subsidiary of Liberty Global plc LBTYA and handles its business operations in Central and Eastern Europe. It is reportedly the largest cable television operator in Poland and offers video, broadband Internet with speeds of up to 1 Gb per second, and digital (VoIP) telephony services to residential, business, and wholesale customers across the region.

Currently serving more than 3.7 million households and thousands of mobile customers, the carrier has witnessed a stellar rise in network traffic at a CAGR of 40% over the last decade, making it imperative to upgrade its infrastructure facilities to better serve its swelling customer base. UPC Poland focused on sustainability and cost control metrics as the key determinants to select a firm for its network expansion without compromising on the quality of service. The carrier wanted to make sure that the chosen routing platform would help it to scale operations to meet the demand for the next decade without any expensive and wasteful rip-and-replace requirements.

Juniper perfectly fitted the bill with a low cost of ownership and a core routing architecture that is capable to address the massive bandwidth demands. Its PTX10008 Series Router was chosen as it offered ultra-high port density for a smaller footprint with a reliable network operating system for high-performance solutions. These platforms are cloud-optimized to enable smooth 400G migrations and deliver the bandwidth and flexibility to cater to an expanding network base.

The simplified network traffic management eradicates the complexity associated with multiple networks and delivers optimal bandwidth utilization. With the latest routing platforms, Juniper aims to significantly improve the network for more agile service delivery and better security features for enhanced visibility and customer data protection. This, in turn, is expected to provide shorter time-to-market for new services while ensuring regulatory compliance and data security.

Segment routing simplifies operations and reduces resource requirements in the network by removing network state information from intermediate routers and placing path information into packet headers at the ingress node. This improves operational flexibility and agility for cost-effective user experiences as fewer network elements are involved, avoiding slow response to sudden network changes.

Juniper is set to capitalize on the growing demand for data center virtualization, cloud computing, and mobile traffic packet/optical convergence. The company is offering new suites of products, such as the T4000 core router, QFX data center platform, ACX and PTX packet/optical solution, among others. With the growing use of smartphones and tablets, mobile data traffic has gone up. This has resulted in higher demand for advanced networking architecture, which is leading service providers to spend more on routers and switches. Juniper is expected to benefit from the higher spending pattern among carriers to upgrade their networks for supporting the incremental growth in data traffic.

Despite short-term challenges, particularly within the cloud and service provider verticals, Juniper expects healthy progress in most areas of its business, which augurs well for its long-term growth. The company has made significant changes to its go-to-market structure to better align its sales strategies with each of its core customer verticals. Moreover, several new products are in the pipeline, which are expected to further strengthen its competitive position across service provider, cloud, and enterprise markets.

The stock has gained 28.6% over the past year compared with the industry’s rally of 14.7%.

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Juniper currently has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). Some better-ranked stocks in the industry are Clearfield, Inc. CLFD, sporting a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), and Ubiquiti Inc. UI, carrying a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

Clearfield delivered a trailing four-quarter earnings surprise of 49%, on average.

Ubiquiti has a long-term earnings growth expectation of 32.9%. It delivered an earnings surprise of 20.5%, on average, in the trailing four quarters.

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