Once untapped, the metropolitan dense wave-division multiplexing (DWDM) market has truly emerged. According to IDC, despite the current economic conditions, worldwide revenues in this market segment will accelerate from $331 million in 2000 to $2.3 billion in 2005 - a compound annual growth rate of 47 percent.
"Massive capacity improvements to the long-haul backbone -- brought on by DWDM -- and a bandwidth explosion in the access portion of the network - enabled by broadband technologies - have created a bandwidth bottleneck in the metropolitan portion of the network," said Sterling Perrin, analyst for IDC's Optical Networks research. "However, newer purpose-built metropolitan DWDM products are hitting the market. These products are a cost-effective means of alleviating the metro bottleneck, and, because of that, carriers are buying them."
According to IDC, although vendors reaped vast rewards from the long-haul DWDM segment of optical networking during the past few years, the metropolitan market segment remained largely untouched until 2000. IDC believes the market will accelerate as bandwidth demands in the metro continue to rise, metropolitan DWDM equipment costs continue to fall, and carrier acceptance of DWDM in the metro increases.
IDC's recently published report, "Metropolitan DWDM: Market Forecast and Analysis, 2000-2005" (IDC #B24226) defines the emerging metropolitan DWDM market segment, identifies the major players and their market share, describes the key market drivers and inhibitors for metro DWDM, and forecasts equipment revenue through 2005.
About IDC:
IDC is a global market intelligence and advisory firm forecasting worldwide markets to help clients gain insight into technology and ebusiness trends to develop sound business strategies. For more information, visit www.idc.com.