100G Rollouts Push OTN Spending

“Optical transport network (OTN) spending, and particularly OTN switching, is benefiting from a rise in investment in coherent core networks,” comments Andrew Schmitt, principal analyst/Optical at Infonetics Research. “Many service providers rolling out 100G are using the opportunity to upgrade their optical switching infrastructure. In the metro, investment is rapidly rotating away from legacy SONET/SDH to packet-optical transport systems that combine optical and Ethernet circuit switching in the same chassis.” The group’s research also found the OTN transport and switching equipment market grew 8 percent last year to $7.3 billion, with North America the top purchaser. Infinera is the North American supplier of choice, it adds.