CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va., June 2 -- The North American market for fiber optic components, currently valued at $2.8 billion, is expected to reach $6.1 billion by 2003, according to a report from Communications Industry Researchers, Inc. (CIR). The report is based on a survey of optical component manufacturers, including producers of lasers, detectors, WDMs, amplifiers and optical switches.
Although CIR predicts that the entire optical component market will show strong annual growth of 18.5 percent over the next four years, the report sees the fastest growth coming in the optical switching components segment, which CIR expects to demonstrate annual growth of 67 percent. CIR credits the future growth of this segment to the increased mainstreaming of optical switching in the next few years, despite predicting that full commercialization of the all-optical network is more than a decade away.