Starent Networks Corp. has announced its most prolific win to date, a deal at U.S. carrier Verizon Wireless reported to have an initial value of at least $30 million.

The deployment sees Starent supply its Packet Data Serving Node (PDSN) kit -- dubbed ST16 Intelligent Mobile Gateway -- as part of Verizon’s nationwide $1 billion CDMA2000 1xEV-DO network upgrade (see Verizon Repeats on 3G and Verizon Has $692M for EV-DO).

PDSNs are packet core network devices used in CDMA network systems. In their next-generation guises, they add sophisticated service creation, billing, and IP traffic management capabilities to this strategic point in the network.

“We are in deployment phase following lab evaluation and field trials,” says Gennady Sirota, VP of product management and marketing. “We are working with Verizon on all of the markets being deployed with EV-DO. We will also support 1x technology.” Verizon has a customer base of 43.8 million.

Reports today suggest Starent has sold approximately 50 ST16s to the carrier, generating more than $30 million in revenue. “It’s a multi-tens-of-millions-dollar deal,” responds Sirota.

Today’s high-profile deal is the company’s ninth announced win and follows an earlier Verizon deployment at its Puerto Rico subsidiary. (See Starent Wins at Verizon PR, Starent's Startup Double-Up, China Unicom Picks Starent, Starent Wins Vivo Deal, Rural Cellular Picks Starent, Starent Wins at US Cellular, Starent Zapps Into Europe , and Starent Networks KDDI.)

Scuttlebutt suggests the vendor has also scored a deal at Sprint Corp. (NYSE: FON), following an apparent OEM agreement with Canadian incumbent Nortel Networks Ltd. (NYSE/Toronto: NT). (See Starent May Have Nortel Win and Starent Hushes on Sprint Deal.)

The vendor scotches any notion of a similar arrangement at Verizon. “We are working directly with Verizon,” says Sirota.

— Justin Springham, Senior Editor, Europe, Unstrung