Last year was the best one for the optical equipment market since 2001, according to analysts. In its fourth consecutive year of growth, the global optical market swelled 19% to reach nearly $14 billion, according to Infonetics Research.

Optical equipment spending was particularly strong in last year's fourth quarter, up 30% from a year earlier to $4.4 billion, said Ovum-RHK. Alcatel-Lucent took $1 billion in optical revenue in that quarter alone. Africa, Europe and the Middle East led global optical spending last year as a $5 billion market, and Ovum suspects emerging markets were a big reason why.

The last equipment vendor to report its quarterly earnings, Ciena, recently upped its outlook for FY 2008 to include a 27% annual revenue growth. That revision came just days before Verizon Business announced it would be using the vendor's CoreDirector optical switch to build an 18-city U.S. mesh network.

One of the few major optical companies to not enjoy a great 2007 was Fujitsu Network Communications, whose optical sales sank by 2% last year because North American carriers in particular transitioned from legacy Sonet gear to DWDM. Still, Fujitsu reportedly won a contract last year in which it will supply Verizon with the latest generation of optical gear: packet optical networking, which enables the migration from Sonet to WDM and Ethernet.