North American sonet systems reflect solid growth trend

The growth rate for Synchronous Optical Network (sonet) systems will continue from today`s $3.8 billion to $5 billion by 2001, according to a new report published by ryan-hankin-kent inc. (South San Francisco, CA).

The report, sonet and Digital Cross-Connect Systems: Technology and Markets, predicts the market for sonet systems will remain buoyant, with demand for OC-192 (10-Gbit/sec) systems from both primary and second-tier carriers representing the highest growth area.

As public networks reach fiber saturation levels, high-speed sonet systems enable carriers to expand their network capacity to gigabit speeds, using the existing fiber infrastructure. OC-192, for example, is equivalent to 129,024 individual voice circuits, and is equal to a fourfold increase over the current OC-48 (2.5-Gbit/sec) systems widely deployed in North American backbone networks.

Three major forces are driving the projected increase in sonet system sales, according to the report. First, the pressure is on backbone networks to increase capacity. Second, there is increased competition for faster-access business services among competing and incumbent local exchange carriers. Third, there is steady growth in Internet and business intranet traffic.

"In all market segments, the growth of sonet systems is being spearheaded by both primary and second-tier carriers and continued increase in demand of data traffic," says Mathew Steinberg, senior analyst at ryan-hankin-kent.

In parallel, the market for digital crossconnect systems (dcss) will grow from $1.7 billion in 1997 and peak at just under $2 billion by 1999. Asynchronous Transfer Mode switches and optical crossconnects will begin to replace traditional dcss after the year 2000. dcss provide the ability to manage traffic in the public switched telephone network by provisioning, grooming, and routing signals.

A "mix and match" approach is being adopted by carriers to resolve their capacity problems. According to Joseph Savage, vice president in charge of ryan-hankin-kent`s sonet service, interexchange carriers and wholesale carriers are expanding their network capacity "using a combination of traditional sonet time-division multiplexing and newer optical dense wavelength-division multiplexing technologies."

For more information on this and other research reports, call (650) 737-9600 or e-mail [email protected]