In a newly released optical five-year forecast report, Dell'Oro Group (www.delloro.com) forecasts that total worldwide optical transport equipment revenue will exceed $13 billion in 2012, in large part due to strong growth in the WDM segment.
"WDM equipment that is used for networking the metro and interconnecting the metro to the long haul is forecast to be the strongest area of optical transport deployment over the next five years," says Jimmy Yu, director of optical transport research at Dell'Oro Group. "We anticipate revenues from WDM metro sales to grow over 80% from 2007 levels, as broadband access continues to migrate to higher speeds and users consume more bandwidth watching videos and sharing pictures." Dell'Oro Group forecasts WDM equipment by port and wavelength shipments. In the DWDM long-haul segment, Dell'Oro Group forecasts 40-Gbit/sec wavelengths to become a significant portion of sales, contributing almost 30% of revenues in 2012.
The Dell'Oro Group's 5-Year Forecast Report offers an overview of the optical transport industry with tables covering manufacturers' revenue, average selling prices, unit shipments, and tributary/line or wavelength shipments (by speed: OC-3/STM-1, OC-12/STM-4, OC-48/STM-16, OC-192/STM-64, OC-768/STM-256, and Other). The report tracks DWDM long-haul terrestrial, WDM metro, SONET/SDH, and optical switch equipment.