For the three months ending Jan. 31, Ciena reported revenues of US$453.1 million, 8.7 percent better than a year ago and slightly better than Wall Street had expected. The company's gross margin was 43.2 percent, compared with 40.3 percent a year ago.

The surprise, though, was the company's earnings after one-time costs (also known as non-GAAP earnings), which came in at $12.3 million, or 12 cents per share, compared with a loss of $16.5 million (17 cents per share) in the same period a year ago. Financial analysts had been expecting a non-GAAP loss of 14 cents per share.

While the results are better than expected, there's still room for caution. As this article was published, Ciena had not yet held its investor conference call to fully explain the numbers, so it's unclear yet whether this is a blip caused by a number of favorable metrics all coming together in a single quarter.

The hope, of course, is that this is a sign of improving market conditions that might be reflected in the financial results of other system vendors.

Ciena CEO Gary Smith is always bullish about the company's prospects and its potential to benefit from market dynamics that will drive demand for 100Gbit/s transport and packet/optical platforms: Maybe 2013 could be the year where he gets to say "I told you so."

— Ray Le Maistre, International Managing Editor, Light Reading