Telecom Ramblings

European alternative backbone Colt Group (LSE:COLT.L - chart, news) announced today the selection and deployment of DWDM  gear from Infinera (NASDAQ:INFN - chart, news, filings) on its intercity network.  The gear is already live in eight countries:  Belgium, France, Germany,  Italy, The Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland, and the UK.  The speed of that roll out parallels others who have chosen Infinera gear.  Actually, it seems like it gets faster every year as the industry gets more and more comfortable with PICs. 

While this isn’t another “Tier-1″ victory for Infinera in Europe in the definitional sense, it might as well be.  Colt’s combination of intercity and metro fiber on the continent reaches some 16,000 on-net buildings and supports revenue of over $2B annually, much larger than most of its peers in the same markets and more geographically diverse than most of the PTTs. 

I don’t know how much longer we can call Infinera an upstart DWDM provider.  They may have only just gotten started in the Tier-1 market, but you can’t swing a cat at CompTel without hitting one of their other customers.  This recession has been an opportunity for them, as their main selling points are cost and scalability.  Providers are increasingly sensitive to both of criteria, so when spending starts up again Infinera may stand to gain some marketshare.