Intelligent Optical Network Hardware Market Grows 60 Percent to $10.3 Billion in 2001 - Brief Article

Fiber Optics Business, July 15, 2001

Worldwide revenues for intelligent optical network hardware will total $10.3 billion in 2001, an increase of 60 percent over 2000, according to Infonetics Research's quarterly worldwide market share and forecast service, Intelligent Optical Network Hardware.

This growth is due to annual increases in all five segments that Infonetics Research covers in this service: last mile CPE, metro edge optical hardware, metro core/regional, long haul, and submarine.

Intelligent optical hardware is new data-aware and data-optimized equipment that allows carriers to build-out and revamp optical networks quickly. The characteristics of intelligent optical hardware are that it:

- Is designed for both voice and data

- Deploys in mesh and star configurations, as well as in rings

- Allows carriers to remotely configure hardware and provision services

- Scales efficiently in service provider data networks

Equipment can be placed where bandwidth is needed, and can be point-to-point or mesh, rather than restricted to rings. Since equipment can be configured and provisioned remotely, the process takes minutes rather than months.