Optical Interface Opportunities

There is a clear opportunity for optical interfaces to capture the bulk 10GigE ports deployed in the next 10 years. The biggest barrier is the market perception that optics is an expensive solution suitable only for early adopters. The glaring message delivered by the copper-centric Ethernet crowd to SFP+ suppliers was "thank you for your help, we will take it from here" but there are a lot of factors playing in favor of SFP+.

In interviews conducted by LightCounting, system and switch installers mentioned that Cat-6a copper cables [required to support 10GBASE-T] were not easy to install nor field terminate, whereas optical and Direct Attach cabling was preferred based on cost, size, airflow and other reasons. Observers noted that the cost of Cisco's card equipped with optical SFP+ ports is still relatively high, but all other vendors including HP price it more reasonably.

August 3, 2011

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