LightCounting: Optical transceiver market rose 30% in 2010/Video over EPON goal of BroadLogic, ZTE collaboration

JANUARY 24, 2011 — Global sales of optical interface modules used in telecom and datacom networks exceeded $2.5 billion in 2010, increasing by 30% from the year before, says market research firm LightCounting. The growth was driven by sales of 10-Gbps SFP+ and DWDM modules, including 40-Gbps and even 100-Gbps products, LightCounting says. Sales of wavelength-selective switch (WSS) modules used in ROADMs and tunable lasers were also strong in 2010, growing at 34% and 14%, respectively, the company adds.

LightCounting says recovery in the datacom market started in the second half of 2009, with sales of Ethernet and Fibre Channel transceivers increasing rapidly, at 10% to 30% per quarter. Growth in sales of these products slowed in Q2 2010, but gained momentum again in the second half of the year. Sales of new products such as 10 Gigabit Ethernet and 8-Gbps transceivers increased by almost 60% in 2010, with short-reach SFP+ modules accounting for most of this growth.

The growth in sales of SONET/SDH and DWDM modules was more modest in the early stages of the recovery, but gained strength in the second half of 2010. The DWDM market segment posted close to 40% growth for the year, according to LightCounting, driven by rapidly increasing sales of fixed-wavelength and tunable 10-Gbps XFP transceivers and 40-Gbps DPSK and DQPSK modules. Sales of SONET/SDH transceivers increased by almost 30% in 2010, mostly due to growth in sales of short-reach OC-768 modules, which jumped by a staggering 160%; suppliers can barely keep up with the demand, LightCounting asserts.

“2010 was an incredibly good year for the optical transceiver market,” commented Vladimir Kozlov, founder and CEO of LightCounting. “We expect that the market growth will continue in 2011, but it will be more moderate at least in the enterprise and storage networking market segments. Market for telecom networking equipment as well as modules and components used in telecom systems is likely to lead the growth this year.”

BroadLogic Network Technologies Inc., a supplier of mixed-signal semiconductors, and ZTE plan to showcase the use of Ethernet Passive Optical Network (EPON) infrastructure to deliver broadcast-quality video services to digital TVs at the CableLabs Winter Conference at the Atlanta Marriott Marquis, Feb. 28 – March 1, 2011. The new demonstration will leverage BroadLogic’s Internet Protocol to Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (IP-to-QAM) reference system integrated with ZTE’s C300 optical line terminal (OLT) carrying broadcast video to a QAM-ready digital TV.

The new EPON-to-QAM gateway enables EPON (both 1G and 10G EPON standardized in 2009) to deliver High-Definition (HD) and Standard-Definition (SD) television channels to hospitality and other bulk commercial accounts, the companies say. EPON-to-QAM gateways also can be used for residential services, including multiple dwelling unit (MDU) digital TV services.

The EPON-to-QAM demonstration for the Winter Conference will include:

BroadLogic’s IP-to-QAM full hardware and software reference design using the BL85000 TeraQAM chip that delivers 32 QAMs on a single RF port
ZTE’s ZXA10 C300 1G/10G EPON OLT
an SFP-ONU for interfacing the OLT to the IP-to-QAM over a 1-Gbps EPON link