NOON -- Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE: ALU) is advertising a big-deal "video" announcement that will take place Wednesday morning at 10:00 Eastern time. It's probably a packet-optical transport system (P-OTS), writes analyst Michael Genovese of Soleil Securities Group Inc. in a note published this morning.

He's thinking AlcaLu will try to take P-OTS beyond the metro network and into the core. Some of its inspiration might come from Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE: VZ), which has asked for a new breed of equipment for a packet-optical core. (See Verizon Rethinks Long Haul.)

The Alcatel-Lucent announcement will be hosted by Basil Alwan, who heads the company's router division. A P-OTS product would fit the intertwined IP/optical strategy Alwan recently told us about. (See AlcaLu Preps Grand Convergence Plan.)

— Craig Matsumoto, West Coast Editor, Light Reading