Nokia picks Infinera to boost its optical networking arm

Nokia has announced its intention to buy optical networking specialist Infinera for $2.3 billion. 

The motivation for the Infinera acquisition is scale, said Nokia CEO Pekka Lundmark, during an analyst call detailing the announcement. 

Jimmy Yu, Dell'Oro Group

Optical networking is how communications service providers and hyperscalers cope with the exponential traffic growth. 

Continual innovation is required to reduce the cost and power consumed to transport such traffic. For a systems vendor, having scale helps meet these aims.

Optical networking wasn't always central to Nokia's strategy. In 2013, Nokia sold its optical networking arm to Marlin Equity Partners, which became Coriant.

Now, Nokia wants to be a leading optical networking vendor by acquiring Infinera, a company that bought Coriant in 2018.   

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OFC 2024 industry reflections: Final part

In the final part, Chris Cole, Ranovus' Hojjat Salemi, and Infinera's Harald Bock share their thoughts about the revent OFC show. 

Chris Cole, Consultant

OFC and optics were back with a vengeance. The high level of excitement and participation in the technical and exhibit programmes was fueled by artifical intelligence/ machine learning (AI/ML). To moderate this exuberance, a few reality checks are offered.

During the Optica Executive Forum, held on the Monday, one of the panels was with optics industry CEOs. They were asked if AI/ML is a bubble, and all five said no. They are right that there is a real, dramatic increase in optics demand driven by AI/ML, with solid projections showing exponential growth.

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OFC 2024 reflects a mature industry with new offshoots

• The three General Chairs preview the upcoming Optical Fiber Communications (OFC) conference and discuss photonics developments and trends.
• The General Chairs' role is to choose the plenary speakers, programme theme, and conference schedule.
• OFC takes place during March 24th-28th in San Diego, CA.*

Photonics, at least for traditional applications, has become a mature industry. So says Professor Dimitra Simeonidou, one of this year's OFC General Chairs.

Professor Dimitra Simeonidou

By traditional, Simeonidou is referring to classical optical communications.

But she also stresses new developments: the use of optical fibres for environmental sensing, optics for satellites, and quantum.

"Quantum is like a micro-OFC," says Simeonidou. "You have issues from technology to subsystem to system applications now appearing in the OFC programmes."

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The OIF's coherent optics work gets a ZR+ rating

The OIF has started work on a 1600ZR+ standard to enable the sending of 1.6 terabits of data across hundreds of kilometres of optical fibre. 

The initiative follows the OIF's announcement last September that it had kicked off 1600ZR. ZR refers to an extended reach standard, sending 1.6 terabits over an 80-120km point-to-point link. 

1600ZR follows the OIF's previous work standardising the 400-gigabit 400ZR and the 800-gigabit 800ZR coherent pluggable optics.      

The decision to address a 'ZR+' standard is a first for the OIF. Until now, only the OpenZR+ Multi-Source Agreement (MSA) and the OpenROADM MSA developed interoperable ZR+ optics.

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ECOC 2023 industry reflections - Final Part

Gazettabyte has been asking industry figures to reflect on the recent ECOC show in Glasgow. The final instalment emphasises coherent technology with contributions from Adtran, Cignal AI, Infinera, Ciena, and Acacia.

The popular Market Focus sessions at ECOC

Jörg-Peter Elbers, head of advanced technology at Adtran

The ECOC 2023 conference and show was a great event. The exhibition floor was busy and offered ample networking opportunities. In turn, the conference and the Market Focus sessions provided information on the latest technologies, products, and developments.

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Agent of change

Dave Welch on how entrepreneurial problem-solving skills can tackle some of society's biggest challenges

Dave Welch is best known for being the founder and chief innovation officer at Infinera, the optical equipment specialist. But he has a history of involvement in social causes.

In 2012, Welch went to court to fight for the educational rights of children in schools in California, a story covered by newspapers in the US and abroad and featured on the front cover of Time magazine.

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ECOC 2022 Reflections - Part 1

Gazettabyte is asking industry and academic figures for their thoughts after attending ECOC 2022, held in Basel, Switzerland. In particular, what developments and trends they noted, what they learned, and what, if anything, surprised them.

In Part 1, Infinera's David Welch, Cignal AI's Scott Wilkinson, University of Cambridge's Professor Seb Savory, and Huawei's Maxim Kuschnerov share their thoughts.

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