Alca-Lu, Ciena, Infinera score with OTN, says Infonetics

Service provider adoption of optical transport network (OTN) switching and transport equipment became a large growth engine for three of the largest optical vendors in 2013: Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE: ALU), Ciena (NYSE: CIEN) and Infinera (Nasdaq: INFN), according to Infonetics Research.

The analyst firm reported that worldwide OTN revenue was $8 billion in 2013, or 66 percent of all optical network hardware spending. Likewise, the OTN switching segment grew 37 percent in 2013.

"OTN switching had a major year of growth in 2013 as service providers prioritized installation of integrated WDM+OTN switching and 100G coherent technology in the core," said Andrew Schmitt, principal analyst for optical at Infonetics Research.

Schmitt added that in China, Huawei is the dominant OTN supplier to service providers that are continuing "to expand large deployments of OTN switching."

Infonetics has forecast that the OTN switching segment will grow at about a 20 percent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) from 2013 to 2018.

Besides OTN, packet-optical transport systems (P-OTS) is becoming a bigger factor as revenue rose 32 percent between the second half of 2012 and the second half of 2013. The market for P-OTS equipment came to $1.7 billion in 2013, split fairly evenly between metro edge and metro regional P-OTS gear

"Over in the P-OTS space, incumbent vendors Cisco (Nasdaq: CSCO), Fujitsu, Tellabs, Ciena, and Alcatel-Lucent are the market leaders, but new players BTI, Cyan, Transmode, and Ericsson are challenging with pure-play P-OTS platforms."

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