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While the ex-Nortel contingent, which has dominated the direction of Ciena in recent years, would almost assuredly be opposed to the idea because it would be viewed as a direct threat to its turf, the…

fibeReality believes that Huawei Technologies is striving to develop coherent optics and optical switching components, as well as potentially other types of new devices further down the food chain with the intent of going head-to-head…

In a 2015 post discussing an OFC presentation of a well-known engineer in the business, titled “ROADMs Instead of Metro 100G Systems?”, the response from a technologist was, “Very interesting view, some may cry heresy.”…

In one our recent LinkedIn fibeReality page updates, we pointed out: “How can the [optical supercycle] term be used when one of the biggest vendors, Ciena, is only expecting single digit growth in fiscal 2017?”…

While the CEO of Finisar has been associated with the company for over 25 years, the average time that the rest of the executive management team has been in the optical components space is around…

Our initial thoughts on Insight Infinera 2016, as outlined on our LinkedIn fibeReality page over a week ago, was partially that “time will unlikely be a friend [to the vendor] as questions over long-term survivability…

Joe Chinnici was unceremoniously let go by Ciena, as the ex-Nortel executives at the company evidently advocated replacing him. In complying to the Sarbanes-Oxley requirements, there were initial glitches in those new rules, and deals…

Although there is a lot of significance in certain quarters being attached to AT&T’s trial of Coriant’s 400G system (as we recently pointed out on on fibeReality’s LinkedIn updates page), the engineers formerly with Tellabs…

Although undersea festoon networks can be found in many parts of the world, one would be hard-pressed to locate a single case in the States. From the perspectives of lower cost, speedier and simpler deployment,…

The photo associated with this article shows the Arnhem John Frost bridge in the Netherlands, which became really famous with the 1977 epic film, A Bridge Too Far, which depicted the tragic and overreaching allied…

When a typical industry observer thought of CenturyLink over the past several years, the following aspects probably came to mind: only a handful of major metropolitan areas that are a vast distance apart from each…

A commonly heard phrase over the years has been that nobody gets fired for buying from Cisco Systems. When it comes to optical networking products, we have reached the stage in which the same can…

Over 30 years ago, there began discussions in the industry about the development of an all-optical switch. Some of the comments sound familiar to those of today. In April, 1983, The Economist addressed them: “[Optical]…

The message that the Street may be going way overboard with Acacia Communications’ valuation, let alone its new secondary offering, may be beginning to resonate. For example, one can read, “Acacia: A Company That Will…

For Verizon, there has been the matter of a tremendous buildout of Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) infrastructure in the past, which was clearly cost prohibitive, or more recently, supposedly picking up this activity with solutions that do…

If Ciena’s CTO, Steve Alexander, been appointed CEO after Patrick Nettles stepped down from the position, the supplier would not have experienced the extreme vacillations in business performance and the negative consequences from the “Nortelization”…

An industry observer might ask a Nokia executive about its plans for 400G and there is a good chance that the response is more likely to be a general one reflecting a lot of uncertainty…

In a Light Reading article, its Editor-in-chief wrote: “Eager to bask in the ‘open networking’ sunshine that has given the switch and router fraternity a shiny new glow, optical systems vendor Infinera…has teamed up with…

In March, we posted an article called “Google’s Fiber: Laugh All the Way to Bank,” in which we stated: “While [Alphabet’s] Google has made a certain amount of investment in the deployment of fiber just…

While Acacia Communications’ recent business performance has been impressive, and deserves to be rewarded, there can be no justification for a market cap that comes even close to exceeding the valuations of either Finisar or…

Juniper Networks probably had very good reasons for becoming more vertically integrated in the optical space including perhaps the need to internally control its supply of transceivers as well as maybe strengthen its competitive position…

After over 15 years of both optical component and system suppliers struggling to generate meaningful margins in the telecom and data communications market, it may be way past time to concede that there may never…

Service providers carrying US federal government communications, including submarine networks that are not based in the country, should be allowed to purchase optical systems from the two major Chinese vendors, Huawei Technologies and ZTE. While…

Given the wealth of connections and contacts of a large corporation in the telecommunications industry, such as at Level 3 Communications, it is always extraordinary that the valuation of a firm increases with speculation that…

The marketization and politicizing of science can result in dire consequences, such as in environmental matters. While the ramifications may be less important in communications, such as the meaning of Ethernet being a moving target…