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GiantLoop Closes on $40 Million: Page 3 of 3

The brash startup faces competition from a range of players. Cisco Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: CSCO), for example, OEMs the FTP DWDM platform from Adva AG Optical Networking (Neuer Markt: ADV) in order to address the needs of enterprise customers. And several service providers, including the likes of Telseon and Yipes Communications Inc. specialize in high-speed optical links for metro-area businesses.

Experts agree that GiantLoop will need to diversify its platform offerings in order to stay ahead of providers like these, who typically are locked into a single vendor's DWDM platform. So far, the vendor says it's talking to vendors other than Nortel, but no agreements have yet been set.

GiantLoop also acknowledges concerns about meeting demand. "There's more demand than supply in this space right now," says Oltsik. But so far, he says, he's confident about customers seeing the value of GiantLoop's service. And barriers to entry are high enough to keep the number of players low -- for the moment, at least.

-- Mary Jander, senior editor, Light Reading http://www.lightreading.com