SAN JOSE, Calif. -- US and Canadian service provider expenditures for metro network equipment will grow 175%, from $6.3 billion to $17.2 billion between 2000 and 2003, according to Infonetics Research's forecast in their just-published white paper, "Metro Networks: The New Hotspot."

The focus of this new paper is the metro network, which comprises:

· The last mile, connecting businesses and homes to a central office (CO)
· The metro edge, aggregating and grooming traffic and applying services
· The metro core, transporting traffic between COs, POPs, and data centers

"The current metro network infrastructure is too complex and inefficient to meet today's data needs, so innovative companies are creating new products and services to simplify it," said Michael Howard, principal analyst and co-founder of Infonetics Research. "This is a hot market entering a stage of rapid growth despite CAPEX worries."

Infonetics Research Inc.