Researcher Dell’Oro’s latest report forecasts that the cumulative optical transport equipment spend will reach $80 billion over the next five years driven by demand for coherent 200+ Gbps wavelengths.
The five-year Optical Transport equipment growth forecasts stands at 16% with revenue from coherent 200+ Gbps DWDM shipments predicted to grow at a 30% compounded annual growth rate (CAGR). Disaggregated WDM systems will be a larger share of the market.
“The market demand for 100 Gbps will continue to be large, but all future optical transport market growth will be driven by sales of higher wavelength speeds,” said Jimmy Yu, vice president at Dell’Oro Group.
The analyst believed that service providers are still motivated to chase better spectral efficiencies to economically increase network capacity while maintaining their capital spend. This explains the desire to migrate to higher wavelength speeds such as 200 Gbps and 400 Gbps.
“Fortunately, component and system manufacturers are striving to deliver better coherent solutions with each new product generation. As a result, optical routes that once were only serviced by 100 Gbps wavelengths are now serviceable by 200 Gbps wavelengths and 400 Gbps in the future,” continued Yu.