BOSTON -- Market research firm Infonetics Research released excerpts from its 2013 Optical Equipment Vendor Leadership: Global Service Provider Survey, which explores service providers’ perceptions of optical equipment suppliers and criteria for choosing vendors.

“Our latest optical vendor study gives us the first picture of who service providers view as the leaders in packet-optical equipment, and Ciena, Alcatel-Lucent, Cisco, and Huawei rate tops among our survey participants," says Andrew Schmitt, principal analyst for optical at Infonetics Research.

Schmitt adds: “Multi-layer support and control plane technology are rising in importance with service providers when making vendor decisions.”

Ciena received the highest overall marks from service providers, ranking 1st in all optical leadership categories: optical transmission and switching, metro edge P-OTS, metro regional P-OTS, and optical control plane. Infinera doubled its awareness among operator respondents compared to last year’s study, and Coriant improved its scores across the board.

When selecting new vendors, those surveyed rank product reliability and total cost of ownership as the most important criteria.

Respondent mentions of 100G as an important feature when evaluating suppliers dropped sharply in this year’s survey, indicating the battle for 100G, at least as a key decision criterion, is over.

Infonetics Research Inc.