Following its quarterly earnings report this week, Infinera is looking even less like a company licking its wounds after losing out on the 100G business at Verizon Communications. During the earnings call, the company reported 15% year-over-year revenue growth, and revealed it began realizing revenue from Level 3 Communications' 100G upgrade during the quarter.

"I don't think this was a surprise to anybody," said Infinera Corp. (Nasdaq: INFN) CEO Tom Fallon on the call regarding Level 3. He declined to attach a monetary value to the Level 3 business. Infinera has long been rumored to be a primary candidate for the Level 3 business, and has worked with the carrier before. But after Infinera missed out on the rumored Verizon deal, it was worth a getting some confirmation on the Level 3 deal from Infinera. (See Analyst: Infinera Loses VZ Deal to AlcaLu and Infinera: We're Fine, Thanks…)

Infinera also said its list of top customers during the quarter included a Tier 1 operator, a cable MSO, and a company described as an "Internet content provider." Infinera declined to identify the Tier 1 operator, but some analysts speculate it's CenturyLink Inc. (NYSE: CTL).

On the call, Fallon also was very upbeat about the market overall, the company's first quarter results, and near-term outlook. (See Infinera Reports Q1 Growth.)

He added that both capacity upgrades and new network build-outs -- and not always by the usual suspects -- continue to drive growth in the optical sector. "We've said for a long time that the industry is too focused on the top two Tier 1s, and not enough on other providers, including the Web 2.0 providers, which is where a lot [of] the future growth will be."

— Dan O'Shea, Managing Editor, Light Reading