Date: 01/07/2012

OTN transport and switching market estimated to grow at a 17% CAGR from 2011-16

Infonetics has forecasted the OTN transport and switching market to grow at a 17% CAGR from 2011 to 2016, outpacing the 5.5% CAGR of the overall optical equipment market (WDM, SONET/SDH).

“OTN is on the fast track to outpacing the overall optical market within the next 5 years,” notes Andrew Schmitt, principal analyst for optical at Infonetics Research. “Nearly half of all 2011 optical equipment spending worldwide was on OTN transport and switching hardware, and by 2016 we expect this to rise to almost 80%, with the burgeoning OTN switching segment growing the fastest. Carriers large and small looking to build efficient transport networks are increasingly turning to OTN switching. China’s telecom carriers are leading the way and are issuing substantial RFPs for OTN switching in the core this year.”

Other market findings shared by Infonetics:

Around 80% of all WDM equipment now supports OTN
Infonetics expects 100G port shipments to overtake 40G shipments by 2014
Huawei is the #1 OTN transport equipment vendor, followed by Alcatel-Lucent and Ciena
A cumulative $6.6 billion is expected to be spent on 2nd-generation P-OTS platforms that combine Ethernet and OTN/SDH switching during the 5 years from 2012 to 2016
A big vendor battle is brewing in the P-OTS space: Cisco, Tellabs, and Alcatel-Lucent are the top 3 vendors, but Fujitsu, Ciena, and Huawei are gaining

Vendors tracked by Infonetics include ADVA, Alcatel-Lucent, Ciena, Cisco, ECI Telecom, Ericsson, Fujitsu, Huawei, Infinera, Nokia Siemens, Tellabs, ZTE, and others.

Infonetics also released a new OTN white paper Integrated OTN Switching Virtualizes Optical Networks, which outlines the economic and operational benefits of converging OTN switching and WDM transport functionality into a single architecture. Download the white at: http://bit.ly/LboNIO.