Someone once accused my wife of being a glass-half-empty type of person, to which she replied, “No, I'm actually a glass-half-full person. But it's that other half that I'm worried about.” Call it the definition of cautious optimism. That was the mood at this year's Optical Fiber Communications Conference. The runaway growth of Internet traffic and the steady growth of the triple play have optical network operators racing to keep up. Worldwide fiber-to-the-home subscribers grew 86% last year and should more than sextuple by 2010, according to Infonetics Research. The North American optical equipment market now tops $1 billion per quarter and is growing fast, according to Ovum-RHK.

“Some investors feel that optics may be ‘cool’ again,” wrote Simon Leopold, an analyst for Morgan Keegan, in a note on the show, citing that the “measured, steady growth” led one system vendor to tell him, “It feels like the mid-1990s again.“ What's different now, however, is the extra focus on that other half of the glass — the added wisdom and conservatism that permeates the space these days. Long gone, but not forgotten, are the “If you build it, they will come,” days of telecom, which were followed, of course, by the “You can't handle the truth!” days of telecom, which were followed by the “I'm in the dark, here!” days and finally the “Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn” days.

Shortly after predicting that Verizon may deploy some 500 reconfigurable optical add/drop multiplexers (ROADMs) by mid-year, chief technology officer Mark Wegleitner told the press at OFC, “We don't equip every [central office] with a ROADM on the belief that someday we'll bring video out there.” Suggesting future deployment of WDM to the home, he was quick to add, “You don't go to those technologies willy-nilly.”

The fact that caution now accompanies the sector's optimism should make players in it even more optimistic now.