Telefonica's Vivo brings 100G to Brazil

Telefonica's (NYSE: TEF) Latin America subsidiary Vivo is launching what it says is the first active 100G optical network in Brazil.

Leveraging Ciena's (Nasdaq: CIEN) 6500 Packet-Optical Platform, the new 100G network has been built to connect legacy 100 GbE channels to the DWDM system to fulfill the requirement for ultra-high speeds for outbound international traffic.

Specifically, the new network includes 100G routes that connect three major cities in Brazil: Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Praia Grande. Similar to other large service providers, the 100G equipment that Vivo deploying can get more capacity to deliver more high-bandwidth services like OTT video and cloud services leveraging their existing fiber network infrastructure.

Although Ciena has been working with Telefonica for over 10 years, gaining this new business with the Spanish provider is another meaningful provider contract in its 100G pocket. To date, Vivo has 3.7 million wireline broadband customers and 610,700 pay TV access points in Brazil.

Ciena's optical revenue was down both sequentially and year-over-year. For the year 2012, the vendor saw an uptick in shipments of its 40G and 100G equipment and is in the process of rolling out a single-carrier 100G solution.

While adoption will vary by each geographic region, new research from Infonetics said that overall growth in the optical segment will be driven by 100G in 2013.

Following what was a flat year in 2012--a factor it said was due to the ongoing decline of legacy SONET/SDH revenues--Infonetics has forecast in its new Optical Network Hardware report that there will be an uptick in optical spending.

For more:
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