Third-hand attendance numbers: 13,000 this year vs. 10,000 last year. Next year's show has apparently outgrown Anaheim and will move to San Diego, at long last. If only they would push it into April.

Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE: VZ) is openly talking about picking Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE: ALU) for GPON. Mark Wegleitner, a would-be Leading Lights recipient, included that in his keynote. It's no big shock.

Bookham Inc. (Nasdaq: BKHM; London: BHM) has a bigger booth than Avanex Corp. (Nasdaq: AVNX). Just saying.

Add Pirelli SpA (Milan: PECI.MI) to the WDM-PON pool. Haven't had time to find out more.

As suspected, the Picolight Corp. acquisition means E2O -- the first JDSU (Nasdaq: JDSU; Toronto: JDU) long-wavelength VCSEL play -- didn't pan out. "We chose not to pursue it," says Mike Ricci, senior vice president, of E2O's VCSEL. "What's nice about the Picolight VCSELs is that they're far along with the technology."

Picolight is already shipping in high volume and, having been around since the dawn of time (1999 anyway), is an established enough name for carriers to recognize.

Ricci wouldn't say what exactly derailed the E2O products but he did note long-wavelength VCSELs are a difficult technology. "With Picolight, we feel comfortable they've cracked the nut," he says. But the Picolight buy wasn't precipitated by some failing of E2O's, he says.

— Craig Matsumoto, West Coast Editor, Light Reading