The optical equipment market performed better in the second quarter than it has in the past four years, Ovum-RHK said.

Spending on optical gear rose 18% sequentially and 11% from a year earlier to $3 billion in the second quarter. For the second quarter in a row, more than $1 billion was spent on optical gear in North America alone, as carriers expanded the capacity of their metro and backbone networks to make room for video traffic. In addition, the growth was driven by new deployments from "non-traditional" customers including mobile operators, cable companies, enterprises, research and education institutions, governments and utilities, Ovum-RHK said.

Among optical equipment vendors, Huawei Technologies saw the most dramatic growth in the space; its second-quarter optical revenue was up 81% sequentially and 54% from a year earlier. Siemens' optical sales grew 33% sequentially and 46% from a year earlier. Nortel Networks' optical sales were up 30% sequentially and 7% from a year earlier. Alcatel's revenue was up 25% sequentially but down 5% from a year earlier. Fujitsu Network Communications, Lucent Technologies and Tellabs all saw sequential declines in optical revenue in the second quarter but no declines from a year earlier.

Spending on multiservice Sonet equipment softened in the quarter, particularly in North America, Ovum-RHK said, as carriers turn increasingly to wavelength-division multiplexing as the basis for their metro core networks. But in Asia, where the optical equipment market is less mature, sales of multiservice SDH gear are still going strong.

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