Maybe it's because those involved in very short-range optics and passive-optical-filter components can see some minor improvements in business, which can look like a veritable boom in a year like this one. If you're a company focused on the cutting edge of dispersion management for 40-Gbit networks, though, there's not much reason to anticipate a near-term windfall. Kristin Rauschenbach, chairwoman of the Supernet optical panel and chief executive of Photonex Corp., said that her company is committed to 40-Gbit networks but doesn't expect a mass conversion from 10 Gbits anytime soon.

Cross-connect and optical add/drop multiplexer companies aimed at the core can still find some business addressing particular choke points at the larger carriers. But that's a far cry from the huge adoption of mesh-based optical cross-connects some analysts had been anticipating just months ago, acknowledged Kevin Oye, vice president of business development at Sycamore Networks. For a company like Sycamore, that can mean putting significant marketing on ice and waiting out several quarters of delayed purchases in optical transport.

In fact, it seems the closer one gets to the network core, the less one hears about specific architectures or companies. And that's no accident. Many manufacturers active in core transport have virtually silenced their marketing departments.

"Hibernation might make sense as a stopgap effort," Packet Design CEO Judy Estrin said at Supernet. "But it can't constitute any real strategy for survival." Estrin is concerned that too many companies are moving into sleep mode at a time when the important issue of optical-electrical control plane standardization needs to be addressed.

So what alternatives exist between bankruptcies and long winter naps? Agere's decision to close the Breinigsville, Pa., automated optics plant certainly points out the inherent dangers the industry could be facing. It's hard to argue on behalf of federal bailouts for the Sycamores and Cienas of the world, but if we let too many marketing departments go somnambulant, it may be virtually impossible to wake them up come spring.