On the heels of a $500 million, multiyear deal with Arris, Cox Communications Inc. signed a three-year pact with Nortel Networks valued at $65 million for telecommunications equipment.

The MSO is buying Nortel's optical Ethernet and next-generation SONET (synchronous optical network) equipment, including its "OPTera Metro 3100," "3400" and "3500" multiservice platforms, to increase network capacity.

Cox also plans to buy Nortel's "DMS" telephony-switching equipment.

Cox is deploying the optical Ethernet equipment, including resilient packet-ring technology, in San Diego.