Our Optical Networking Research Program helps both telecommunications equipment vendors and service providers to understand and take advantage of opportunities in various specific optical markets.

This Research Program provides an in-depth analysis and overview of all optical systems offered on the market as well as an evaluation and forecast of new optical switching technologies and architectures delivering converged optical transport and bandwidth management for TDM and data services. The program also covers new network models that address operational issues by combining functions that exist in separate legacy systems into a single box, thus eliminating the need for physical interconnection.

Dittberner believes that a big growth area for Network Operators will be managed wavelength services that carry traffic like Gigabit Ethernet and 10GE. This will be the next step in managed private line services. A new trend currently pushed by the vendors is to use a mesh network topology with optical switching systems as an alternative to traditional linear or ring architectures.

The reports in this category provide the following major categories of information and guidance:

• An in depth analysis of the economics of an all-optical mesh network vs traditional optical ring architecture
• Examines the capital and operational cost associated with deploying a mesh vs. ring optical network architecture taking into consideration the revenue impact
• Provides guidance on the realistic price evolution of optical switches over the next 8 years
• Provides a realistic forecast of both optical switching technical capabilities and of market readiness to implement these systems for each major application
• Cost-based price forecasts for large all-optical switches vs. small units, large optical add-drop multiplexers vs small ones.
• Company overview and detailed product technical descriptions of all world-class Optical Switches and Optical Service Node systems offered on the world market that have general availability within the next 9 months
• Case studies of 20 pioneering telecom service providers' implementation experience with such systems
• Installed base and on order positions of these systems, by country, by supplier, and by operator
• Optical technology trend analysis and capability forecasts
• Conclusions and recommendations for each type of telecom service provider

For more information, contact Dittberner Associates.