Optical Fiber Communication Conference (OFC) 2026 - Scaling Up Optical Network Density
Dell'Oro Group, Thursday, April 2nd, 2026
OFC 2026 was held a couple of weeks ago, and since then, I have had a chance to reflect on what was shown and what I saw from the perspective of an Optical Transport industry analyst. The simple conclusion is that the next direction for optical networking is to scale up in density.
100 Gbps ZR/ZR+ is officially a market
I should clarify this headline. 100 Gbps ZR/ZR+ QSFP28 pluggable optics have been shipping for revenue since 4Q 2023, and shipments have ramped nicely. However, the only supplier of the DSP (Digital Signal Processor) was a co-developed product from Coherent Corp and Adtran. So, technically, it was only one supplier.
This changed during OFC when two additional suppliers-Cisco Acacia and Arycs Technologies-announced plans to begin shipping their 100 Gbps ZR/ZR+ pluggable with in-house DSPs in mid-2026. Now there are three DSP suppliers, introducing competition and giving customers a choice. It 'feels' more like a market. I should add that in the IPoDWDM and Disaggregated WDM report, we forecast that 100 Gbps ZR/ZR+ optical pluggable modules will grow steadily for many years to come.