Juniper Networks blamed tight service provider budgets for causing fourth quarter earnings to drop by nearly 50 percent and said the first quarter would likely be worse.

The company continues to lose customers to a resurgent Cisco, which is scheduled to release results Feb. 8, and has seen the value of its stock erode some 45 percent in the past year, including a 3 percent drop Friday following its earnings report.

And, those conditions don't look like they're ripe for change. A new report from Ovum today said that telecoms are likely to aggressively control capex and opex expenditures for the next several years as global economic turbulence continues to make for uncertain times. The research firm said 2011 was a bounce-back year for much of the industry, but forecast growth to slow by half through 2017. Juniper gets about 6 percent of its revenue from AT&T.

Juniper's guidance for the first quarter was less than enthralling, with the company, which now has about 18 percent of the router and switching market compared to Cisco's 50 percent, saying it expects first quarter profit of between 11 and 14 cents a share, and sales of $960 million to $990 million. Analysts expected profits of 27 cents on sales of $1.1 billion.

Juniper reported net income of $96.2 million, or 18 cents a share, for the fourth quarter, about half of its year-ago results when it earned $190.2 million, or 35 cents a share. Sales fell to $1.12 billion. Analysts expected profits of 27 cents per share and sales of $1.12 billion.

Juniper, meanwhile, contends that several new products scheduled for release this year will help it grow its share of the market. Last week, it announced it had signed a definitive agreement to acquire rights to the service management layer of BitGravity's CDN technology.