Amidst a challenging economy and slower spending at all of the larger service providers, the WDM (wave division multiplexing) optical market appears to be holding its own, a new Dell'Oro report indicates.
 |
|
(Source: Dell'Oro Group) |
Led by the trio of Huawei, Ciena (Nasdaq: CIEN) and Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE: ALU), total metro and long-haul WDM applications grew 14 percent year-over-year in 3Q 2012.
The market is forecast to reach $8 billion for the full year 2012 and rise even higher in 2013.
Jimmy Yu, Vice President of Optical Transport research at Dell'Oro Group, said the last time that the WDM market came close to $8 billion was "the year 2000 when the WDM market peaked at $7.7 billion and then promptly burst downwards to $1.8 billion," adding that the market is "finally on a path to best this previous revenue peak and to attain a new record revenue marker for the WDM market."
One of the key drivers that will facilitate growth for the full year 2012 and into 2013 is the ongoing rollout of 40G and 100G DWDM wavelengths.
Huawei, Ciena and Alcatel-Lucent continue to rack up a number of high profile 40 and 100G wins throughout 2012. Just this week, Ciena announced that Reliance Globalcom is upgrading its FEA network to 100G, while Huawei and Alcatel-Lucent have found big roles in the 100G network upgrades of China Telecom and CenturyLink (NYSE: CTL).
Although the fourth and fifth place on Dell'Oro's list includes Fujitsu and NEC, another vendor that's a rising star in the 100G race is Infinera, via its DTN-X platform. TeliaSonera International Carrier (TSIC), TeliaSonera's wholesale arm serving the U.S. market, recently deployed the DTN-X to support its backbone traffic and deliver 100G services to its wholesale customers.
In addition to being deployed by 16 carrier customers, Tom Fallon, Infinera's CEO, said during the company's Q3 earnings call that it would be announcing another major customer win for the DTN-X at the end of the year.
For more:
- see the release
Download our eBook: Looking Beyond 100G
Related articles:
Pacific Wave selects Ciena's 100G for R&E network upgrade
CenturyLink gets into the 100G game
China Telecom selects Alcatel-Lucent for its OTN/WDM transition
TeliaSonera International Carrier selects Infinera for 100G network
Infinera banks on DTN-X switching platform sales in Q3
ADVA Q3: Revenues rise 3.7% year-on-year to $107.4M