Optical transport networks (OTN) switching are reaching mainstream status with service providers. To wit: 86 percent of the service providers surveyed by Infonetics Research said they planned to deploy OTN switching.

“As the results of our latest OTN study bear out, OTN switching is no longer a niche technology,” said Andrew Schmitt, principal analyst for optical at Infonetics Research. “In the recent past there was a sizeable minority of carriers who planned to skip OTN switching, but that minority is dwindling. In the next three years, OTN switching is going to be a requirement for most WDM transport platforms in the metro and all higher-density systems in the core.

“The OTN switching and WDM transport markets are in the process of combining, resulting in an even larger potential market for OTN switching than originally anticipated.”

Other results from the survey included:

• Packet-optical is a niche market today, representing only 10 percent of all optical spending, but by 2016 nearly all operator respondents want systems that integrate OTN switching and packet switching in the same platform

• Optical mesh protection currently plays a minor role in carrier networks, but will be dominant by 2016.