Message from Ovum at ECOC 2008: Optical Communications Continues to Relieve Service Provider Pressure Points, Despite Cloudy Global Financial Picture

Dana Cooperson provides ‘industry health check’ at ECOC Market Focus Seminar

September 23 - Optical communications has been a key enabler of telecom growth and will continue to offer relief to service providers squeezed between limited revenue growth and rising costs; that was the message at today’s ECOC Exhibition Market Focus seminar from Dana Cooperson, VP Optical Infrastructure at influential industry analyst house Ovum.

Giving an ‘industry health check’ at Europe’s biggest optical communications event, taking place this week in Brussels, Cooperson noted that there is no direct link between the global financial outlook and spending on optical gear, advising that technology, regulatory, and other changes impact spending far more directly. She outlined the pressures on service providers, including being squeezed between limited revenue growth and rising costs, but highlighted the following benefits of optical infrastructure in providing relief:

Lowering cost/bit
Increasing deployment flexibility
Allowing paced evolution
Enabling new services

The ‘health check’ also offered cautious optimism to the industry, showing clear moves toward converged packet optical transport, the commercialization and deployment of 40Gb/s systems, and the increase in demand for Enterprise Ethernet services. 

“As we look ahead to the near future of the optical industry, we will see a continued shift towards increased spending on WDM infrastructure, particularly in metro and regional networks,” said Ms. Cooperson.  “A few key trends - including packet optical convergence, advances in photonic integration, and the mainstream introduction of tunable parts - coupled with multi source agreements, work on 100G and connection-oriented Ethernet, and simplification of installation and management techniques, suggest that the role of optical equipment as an enabler of telecom growth can continue, and even accelerate.

“With the right investments and business strategies, there is real reason for the players in this industry to succeed in capturing a growing opportunity for optical infrastructure, particularly in emerging markets and non-traditional buyer segments.”

Other speakers in the first session of the ECOC Market Focus included Cisco co-founder, Len Bosack; Robin Mersh, COO at the Broadband Forum; Loudon Blair of Ciena; and Dr. Stephan Neidlinger, Director of WDM at ADVA Optical Networking.

The afternoon session will put the spotlight on two cutting edge, European-funded WDM-PON FTTx projects - GigaWaM, which will be represented by Magnus Breidne, CEO of Ignis Photonyx, and SARDANA, which will be represented by Craig Thomas of Tellabs, and Philippe Chanclou of France Telecom.

The third session, beginning on Wednesday 24 at 10:00, opens with Alain Couder, President and CEO of optical component and module player, Bookham, Inc.  The session will focus on the metro and long-haul/ultra long-haul network markets, and will address issues of 40 and 100Gb/s transport, successful business models for component manufacturers, and the impacts of industry consolidation.  Alain Couder will be followed by Kim Papakos of Tellabs; Harry Bosco, CEO of Opnext; and Sinclair Vass of JDSU.

Last year’s ECOC Exhibition attracted nearly 6,000 visitors - an increase of 20% on 2006 - and sold out for the first time since the market crash. Pre-registration numbers for the ECOC Exhibition 2008 have exceeded last year by over 500, and show organisers are expecting record numbers once again.  For more information about the exhibition please visit www.ecocexhibition.com.