Optical transport equipment specialist Infinera Corp. (Nasdaq: INFN) is believed to have been chosen by Vodafone UK for a new backbone network rollout following a recent RFP (request for proposal) process, a trusted industry source tells Light Reading.

Official news of the deal could come as soon as January 2010, according to the source.

It's not known whether Infinera would be the only optical equipment supplier for Vodafone's new transport infrastructure rollout.

With more and more data traffic on their networks, mobile operators are planning for further growth by boosting the capacity of their transport and backhaul networks, and investing in technology such as deep packet inspection (DPI) and policy control platforms. (See Policy Players Prosper and Policy Matters to Mobile Broadband Operators.)

Infinera has already landed a number of big name deals in Europe for its PIC (photonic integrated circuit) technology, with carriers praising the ease and speed of initial deployment and the flexibility that Infinera's platform offers in terms of adding new capacity. (See Tiscali Heads South With Infinera and Infinera Bolsters COLT's Backbone.)

— Ray Le Maistre, International News Editor, Light Reading