2026 Lightwave Innovation Reviews Honorees

Our 13th annual Lightwave Innovation Reviews follows our standard format. We invited technology developers to submit products introduced or enhanced since March 2025 in various technology categories for review by our independent panel of judges.

Lightwave Staff

Feb. 12, 2026

6 min read

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Our 13th annual Lightwave Innovation Reviews saw technology developers submit products introduced or enhanced since March 2025 in various technology categories for review by our independent judges. In some cases, this resulted in entries for products that will debut at the end of this March at OFC 2026.

The Innovation Awards honor innovations in both optical and broadband.

Lightwave Editor-in-Chief Sean Buckley, as Award Program Manager, assigned each entry to be reviewed by at least three judges knowledgeable in the relevant technology or application. As was the case in previous years, they rated each entry on the following scale:

0-1.5: Not a particularly useful product

2.0-2.5: Okay, but perhaps a commodity product

3.0-3.5: Solid product, usually with at least one attribute that sets it apart from commodity products

4.0-4.5: Excellent product with technical features and performance that provide clear and substantial benefits

5.0: Superb product that demonstrates breakthrough performance and/or innovation.

This year’s panel included:

· Fuad Alnajjar, Vice President, Business Engineering, Wireless for Mediacom

· Sean Buckley, Editor in Chief, Lightwave

· Frank Chang, Ph.D., CTO, Source Photonics

· Peter De Dobbelare, Cisco Fellow, Cisco Systems

· Lawrence Gasman, President and founder of CIR

· Stephen Hardy, former editorial director of Lightwave

· Tee Harton, Senior Director of OSP Engineering at Cox Communications

· Jeff Heynen, Vice President, Broadband Access and Home Networking for Dell’Oro Group

· Tom Issenhuth, principal at Issenhuth Consulting

· Daryl Inniss, Principal Market Analyst, LightCounting

· Jaimie Lenderman, research manager, fixed and optical/IP infrastructure, Omdia

· Patrick McLaughlin, editor in chief, Cabling Installation & Maintenance

· Serge Melle, Director of Product Marketing of Optical Networks at Nokia

· Jim Theodoras, vice president of R&D, HG Genuine USA

· Mark Woodworth, Managing Director, Magnolia Road Internet Cooperative

· Jimmy Yu, VP, Dell’Oro

As has been tradition, we honor the following entries for achieving a score of at least 3.5 on that 1 to 5 scale. Congratulations to all the companies listed below. Be sure to look for these companies at OFC 2026 to learn more.

Congrats to the following honorees!

Optical

Carrier Fiber, Cable, Enclosures, and Accessories

HFCL: IBR Micro Cable Family (864F &1728F Micro Cable)
Marvell: ACC Linear Equalizers
Sterlite Technologies: Multicore Fiber and World's Slimmest Fiber (864F IBR) for AI
Sterlite Technologies: STL CONCAT - Spliceless Concatenated Cable Assembly System
ZTE: Fiber Fingerprint Solution Empowers Turkcell Fiber Infrastructure

Communications Semiconductors and Electrical ICs

TeraSignal: TS9802 Intelligent TIA with TSLink™ Eye Monitoring
MaxLinear: Rushmore
InSiGa: 56Gbaud/s 8-channel MZ DRV + TIA Chipset (ISG-D5680 & T5783)
InSiGa: 200G/Lane Quad-Channel MZ Driver – ISG-D9648

Data Center Fiber, Cable, Enclosures and Accessories

Amphenol: Fiber Vault
Arrayed Fiberoptics: MTC Fiber Connector
Arrayed Fiberoptics: Perforated Tube Fiber Protection Sleeve
Infraeo: 5 Meter 1.6T OSFP Active Electrical Cable
Infraeo: 9 Meter 800G OSFP Active Electrical Cable
Molex: VersaBeam Expanded Beam Optical (EBO) Interconnect Solutions
Sumitomo Electric Lightwave: Quantum-Ultra Ribbon Fiber Splicer

Data Center Interconnect Platforms

Huawei: OptiXtrans DC908
M2 Optics: OptiTether – Drone
Sumitomo Electric Lightwave: Precision ferrule technology enables 32-fiber MMC Connector

Field Test Equipment

AFL: FlowScout® MPO OLTS Test Set
Coherent: WaveAnalyzer 200B Portable Optical Spectrum Analyzer
EXFO: FTBx-88810 Series+
Fluke: CertiFiber Max
Physik instrumente: PINovAlign Integrated Photonics Probe and Test Engine
VeEx: bFX160 FiberBEAST™ Automated Bidirectional OLTS and OTDR
VeEX: Field Replaceable Optical Connector Protector System
VeEx: MTX642 Dual 400G Portable Test Set
VIAVI Solutions: A3 400G Appliance
VIAVI Solutions: DCX (Data Center Expert Tier 1 OLTS)
VIAVI Solutions: OneExpert Fiber (ONX-700 Series)

Lab/Production Test Equipment

EXFO: BA-1600 Series - 1.6T Bit Analyzer
Keysight: INPT 1600GE
MultiLane: ML7008F-LFT 1.6T BERT
MultiLane: Pulsar 70 TDR ML8004-70-PLS
VIAVI Solutions: D2 1.6T Appliance
VIAVI Solutions: MAP Series mFVU-3000 Benchtop Connector Microscope
VIAVI Solutions: ONE LabPro® ONE-1600ER Enhanced 1.6Tbps Testing Module
Teledyne LeCroy Xena Networks: Z1608 Edun Terabit Ethernet Traffic Generator
Yokogawa Corporation of America: AQ6361 Optical Spectrum Analyzer
Yokogawa Corporation of America: AQ7420 series High-Resolution Reflectometer