Well, no wonder Infinera declined to comment on NTT's announcement that it would move forward with deployment of 100-Gbps technology on the PC-1 submarine cable network (see "NTT Com plans 100G for PC-1 transpacific submarine cable network"). It seems that the trial NTT conducted using Infinera's 100-Gbps systems was enough to convince NTT that 100G was ready for deployment, but not that Infinera was the right company for the job -- at least not yet.

Responding today to a query I made on Monday, sources at NTT say the vendor decision is still up in the air. "We have done field trial with Infinera, but have not decided to adopt Infinera as a supplier for the deployment," reported NTT's Takeshi Kawasaki, who works in the media relatinons department. "We will decide future supplier comparing [Infinera] to equipments of other vendors."

NTT and Infinera transmitted 100-Gbps traffic in both line-side and client-side formats across 9,500 km, Infinera announced last month (see "Infinera trials 100 Gbps undersea with Pacific Crossing"). NTT now says that it plans to deploy 100-Gbps technology on the undersea cable network by the middle of 2013.

Kawasaki did not indicate when vendor selection would take place.