The long-haul DWDM market grew by more than 30% in 2006 with further growth ahead in 2007 and 2008, according to Heavy Reading research

Dark Reading Staff, Dark Reading

February 5, 2007

2 Min Read

NEW YORK -- Worldwide sales of long-haul DWDM (dense wavelength division multiplexing) products grew by more than 30 percent in 2006, to $1.8 billion, as network operators scrambled to add capacity in the wake of surging demand for bandwidth, according to a major new report from Heavy Reading (www.heavyreading.com), the market research division of CMP Technology's Light Reading (www.lightreading.com).

Long-Haul DWDM: Market & Technology Outlook provides a detailed look at the long-haul DWDM sector through an extensive and exclusive survey of network operators worldwide; a forecast of the DWDM equipment market; and information gathered from direct interviews with carriers and suppliers.

The findings of this latest research reveal a market in the midst of an impressive recovery, as operators not only shore up capacity on their installed base of long-haul DWDM gear to keep up with demand, but also overlay routes or entire backbones with new gear to take advantage of the latest generation of optical equipment.

Long-Haul DWDM: Market & Technology Outlook addresses key questions now facing network operators looking to expand network capacity, including:

  • At what pace will backbone bandwidth demand continue to grow, and is there any way to "future proof" a core DWDM network?

  • How can network operators take advantage of new technologies to improve provisioning times and lifecycle costs, given their capital constraints?

  • How will the trend in the metro-aggregation network toward Ethernet and packet networking affect network operator decisions in the core?

  • Will growth in the core network be cyclical or linear?

  • Will wavelength services migrate to optical transport network (OTN) services? And will OTN migrate to a true networking layer, beyond Sonet/SDH?

  • Will 40-Gbit/s transport be squeezed out of the market by 100-Gbit/s Ethernet?

This report explores each of these questions in detail, with key answers provided by an exclusive worldwide survey of 88 service provider employees, designed to elicit their core DWDM deployment plans and feature requirements. Survey respondents represent more than 60 network operators worldwide, with 40 percent of responses coming from carriers with annual revenues of $1 billion or more. The survey was supplemented by direct interviews with DWDM operators and technology suppliers.

"The long-haul DWDM market is on fire," notes Scott Clavenna, Chief Analyst with Heavy Reading and author of the report. "In 2006, the long-haul DWDM market – including those systems designed for backbone networks, with spans in excess of 1,000 kilometers – grew more than 30 percent, to approximately $1.8 billion. This growth benefited nearly every long-haul DWDM vendor worldwide."

The vast majority of network operators either are upgrading, or soon will upgrade, their DWDM backbones, Clavenna adds. "According to our service provider survey, 52 percent of respondents say their company is currently expanding its DWDM backbone; another 42 percent will expand in

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