Jagdeep Singh - Infinera - 100Gb Ethernet

Infinera has been an early mover in support of 100-Gbit/s Ethernet. In November, the company showed off its 100-Gig technology with a team that also included Finisar Corp. (Nasdaq: FNSR - message board), Level 3 Communications Inc. (Nasdaq: LVLT - message board), Internet2 , and researchers from the University of California at Santa Cruz. For that demo, the team split the 100-Gig signal into 10 lines of 10-Gbit/s each, showing that 100-GigE is possible on current 10-Gbit/s infrastructure. (See Infinera Demos 100GigE.)

But the company's scrappy spirit is just a reflection of its founder. In an interview after his company's first earnings call, Singh told Light Reading that getting customers to switch to Infinera's system is a "good validation" of the economic advantage it can provide. After all, he asked, "Can you name another major North American long-haul network that was not awarded to the incumbent?"