Rumor: AlcaLu's Early 100G Win at VerizonRumor: AlcaLu's Early 100G Win at Verizon

Remember that Ciena Corp. (NYSE: CIEN) announcement, about deploying live 100Gbit/s links in North America for Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE: VZ)? (See Verizon Readies 100G Launch in US.)

That job might have belonged to Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE: ALU) at first.

The theory is that AlcaLu actually won the job but lost it by being late to deliver and having "technical issues," analyst Simon Leopold of Morgan Keegan & Company Inc. wrote in a note published Monday.

The problem is likely that Verizon has been using the LambdaXtreme, a piece of gear from the Lucent side of AlcaLu, Heavy Reading analyst Sterling Perrin tells Light Reading in an email.

AlcaLu's 100Gbit/s technology was built for the 1830 PSS, and a port to the LambdaXtreme is apparently still on the to-do list, he speculates. That would have left the door open for Ciena.

That's tough, because Leopold and others see a lot of merit in AlcaLu's 100Gbit/s technology, which uses only one optical carrier whereas Ciena uses two -- that is, Ciena is actually transmitting two 50Gbit/s wavelengths that fit in one spot on the ITU grid. Many analysts think the single-carrier approach is preferable, and Ciena has been working on developing that technology. (See Analyst: AlcaLu's 100G Game-Changer.)

"Alcatel-Lucent is hot on Ciena’s tail when it comes to 100G, but we believe technical issues have allowed Ciena to maintain its lead and gain footprint at Verizon," Leopold wrote.

Ciena was also the chosen vendor when Verizon deployed its first commercial 100Gbit/s connection, that one in Europe. (See Verizon Does 100GigE in Europe and Verizon Deploys 100G Ethernet in Europe.)

— Craig Matsumoto, West Coast Editor, Light Reading