The optical network equipment — WDM and SONET/SDH — spending rose 5 percent to $2.7 billion in Q1 2015, said IHS.

The telecom analysis report said there are signs of improvement in EMEA (Europe, the Middle East and Africa), while Japan is preparing for a large-scale 100G rollout.

“The focus in optical networking is now shifting to the metro as new products targeted specifically at this market are announced and scheduled for production. This will allow datacenters and traditional service providers to more rapidly adopt metro 100G in a significant way,” said Andrew Schmitt, research director for carrier transport networking at IHS.

Between the telecoms and web companies, spending on optical transport by web companies is growing faster right now.
WDM revenue grew 9 percent in Q1 2015 from the previous quarter, said IHS.

100G spending is increasing and comprises around a quarter of total WDM revenue. Alcatel Lucent, Ciena, Cisco, Huawei and Infinera are the main 100G vendors.

Internet content providers (ICPs) presently account for roughly one-tenth of North American optical spending, though volatility in future expenditures is likely.

Baburajan K
[email protected]