After three years of poor industry performance, the worldwide market for 10-Gbit/sec systems will stage a modest recovery this year and should enjoy stronger growth starting in 2005, eventually reaching $3.2 billion in sales by 2008, details a new report from industry analyst CIR (Charlottesville, VA).
While the bulk of 10-Gbit/sec deployments will continue in long-haul, CIR believes the forecasted growth will come from the metro, access, and enterprise segments. There are several key drivers for the deployment of 10 Gbits/sec closer to the customer. First, bandwidth-hungry protocols Escon, Fibre Channel, and Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) are becoming more widely deployed and are supported over metro or regional areas rather than nationally or internationally. Second, today's broadband networks now require 10-Gbit/sec aggregation; in all segments of the public network, the 10-Gbit/sec market is also being driven by the significant investment in backhaul facilities for mobile voice and data services. Finally, several million PCs and servers are now equipped with GbE, which will push the market forward for 10-Gbit/sec connectivity in the wiring closet and backbone applications.
While OC-192 SONET/SDH transport will remain the largest spending category over the forecast period, technologies such as WDM, 10-GbE, and 10-Gbit/sec ATM will achieve more significant growth rates, according to the report. The transition to 10-GbE and 10-Gbit/sec ATM is the natural evolutionary path for networks that have traditionally relied on Ethernet and/or ATM.
CIR's data also suggests a resurgence of interest in WDM, but this time within the corporate-network/SAN segments, where WDM is becoming a mainstream solution for large end users. Meanwhile, WDM continues to be deployed at a healthy rate in submarine systems. Further sustaining the DWDM market is Europe, which has not cut spending on DWDM transport elements to the extent that U.S. carriers have.
For more information about the report, "The Market at 10-Gbits/sec: A Value Chain Analysis," visit www.cir-inc.com.