This means that today a service provider can multiply the transmission capacity of its existing fibers up to 160 times. Optical networking system vendors segment the market into categories such as long-haul, metro, access and enterprise. Access to these systems is possible only for large service providers. Metro systems provide service to a variety of customers within a metropolitan area or region. Access systems generally provide service to an end-user.
Enterprise networks allow businesses to communicate with the public optical network.
In general, the highest density equipment, including highest port density switches and highest density multiplexing and demultiplexing systems, are required in the long-haul market. This market is the least sensitive to component and system pricing and to the substantial amount of space the current generation of WDM systems require. As telecommunications service providers extend their networks into metro and access applications, densities diminish and the need for high volume, less expensive components and systems become critical. In addition, the amounts of space available for optical networking systems diminish in metro and access systems. The bottleneck in the deployment of optical networks has been the availability of low cost components that are manufacturable in scale.