Sales of carrier Wave Division Multiplexing (WDM) systems surpassed that of
Synchronous optical networking (Sonet) and Synchronous Digital Hierarchy (SDH)
multiplexers for the first time in the first quarter of this year, new research
reports.
Within the $1.4bn WDM market, the WDM Metro segment outperformed the Dense
Wave Division Multiplexing long haul segment and grew 47 per cent over the
year-ago quarter, according to Dell'Oro Group.
"With internet traffic growing at such high rates, service providers have to
build optical networks that can handle enormous traffic volumes today yet can
continue to scale in the immediate future," said Shin Umeda, vice president of
optical transport research at Dell'Oro.
"WDM systems can clearly handle those requirements more economically than
legacy Sonet/SDH multiplexers."
The report also shows that the WDM Metro market was highly fragmented in the
first quarter.
Seven vendors accounted for over 80 per cent of the market, but none
commanded more than 15 per cent revenue share.
Cisco was the market leader in the first quarter, followed closely by
Alcatel-Lucent and Nortel.
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