NETWORK INFRASTRUCTURE

摘要

After some years of stagnancy, there are finally sails on the infrastructure horizon. Look to MPLS and Metro Ethernet to make a splash. Network equipment sales are finally turning around. Network equipment revenue will grow 8.4 percent through 2008, according to the Telecommunications Industry Association, with the largest growth from sales of fiber optic cable (17.6 percent compound annual growth). This amounts to projected sales of $21.9 billion in 2008—up from $15.8 billion in 2004, but nowhere near the $51.9 billion sales reported in 2000. We'll probably never return to the heady spending sprees of 1999-2000. That infrastructure-upgrade buying was attributed to Y2K anxiety. Network infrastructure spending hit bottom in 2003 and has been climbing slowly since then.