OTN switching poised for breakout growth

BOSTON, USA: Optical transport network OTN market (OTN transport and switching equipment) to grow at 13 per cent CAGR through 2016, slightly faster than the underlying WDM market it mostly overlaps, finds market research firm Infonetics Research.

"Though OTN switching currently makes up only a small portion of the overall OTN market and deployments have been centered mostly in China, we anticipate breakout growth for this segment as operators in EMEA and North America adopt integrated WDM+OTN switching as part of the roll out of 100G coherent technology in regional and core networks," notes Andrew Schmitt, principal analyst, optical, Infonetics Research. "We're forecasting the OTN switching segment to grow at a five-year compound annual growth rate of 28 per cent from 2012 to 2016."

Once final figures are in for the full year 2012, Infonetics expects OTN revenue to total $7 billion, or 65 per cent of all optical equipment spending. The market for P-OTS equipment is anticipated to be $1.26 billion in 2012, with 55 per cent of revenue coming from metro edge P-OTS and 45 per cent from metro regional P-OTS.

Incumbent vendors Tellabs, Alcatel-Lucent, Cisco, Fujitsu, and Ciena are the P-OTS market leaders, but new players including BTI, Cyan, Transmode, and Ericsson are challenging with pure-play P-OTS platforms, it adds.