According to a newly published report by Dell'Oro Group, sales of WDM systems surpassed that of SONET/SDH multiplexers for the first time ever in the first quarter of this year. Within the $1.4 billion WDM market, the WDM metro segment outperformed the DWDM long-haul segment and grew 47 percent over the year-ago quarter. 

According to a newly published report by Dell'Oro Group, sales of WDM systems surpassed that of SONET/SDH multiplexers for the first time ever in the first quarter of this year. Within the $1.4 billion WDM market, the WDM metro segment outperformed the DWDM long-haul segment and grew 47 percent over the year-ago quarter.

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 Group. "WDM systems can clearly handle those requirements more economically than legacy SONET/SDH multiplexers. Manufacturers continue to improve the attractiveness of WDM systems by incorporating advanced optical and packet technologies such as ROADM, 40 Gbits/sec and Ethernet," Umeda added.

The report also shows that the WDM metro market was highly fragmented in the first quarter, with seven vendors accounting for over 80 percent of the market, but with none commanding more than 15 percent revenue share. Cisco was the market leader in the first quarter, followed closely by Alcatel-Lucent and Nortel.

The report tracks DWDM long-haul terrestrial, WDM metro, SONET/SDH, and optical switch equipment.

Dell'Oro Group