The comment — attributed in Infinera CEO David Heard (pictured) — was picked up at Infinera’s launch yesterday of its new suite of vertically integrated ICE-XR pluggables.
These, said Infinera, will offer network operators the performance, scale and efficiency critical to the delivery of differentiated 5G, enhanced broadband, and next-generation cloud and business services.
But John Byrne, of analyst company GlobalData, noted in a live tweet that Heard said the industry has that $1 billion opportunity.
“Heard specifically indicated that he sees a $1 billion opportunity in replacing Huawei optical gear as operators upgrade their optical networks over the next few years,” Byrne told Capacity. Huawei kit is effectively banned in the US, and its 5G kit is banned in much of the western world because of security fears, which Huawei denies.
Byrne added that Heard said they are also “basing their optimistic outlook on a combination of technological advancements and changing market dynamics”.
Dave Welch, founder and chief innovation officer at Infinera, said: “We have been engaged with 100+ network operators globally and the feedback that we have received has surpassed anything I have seen in my 35+ years of experience in successfully bringing game-changing technologies to market.”
The new product, Welch said, “will enable Infinera to create a completely new market with functionality that is uniquely positioned to address the point-to-multipoint traffic demands at the rapidly growing network edge and provide TCO [total cost of ownership] savings of as much as 70%.”
