lancing Ethernet startup providers with interna- tional accounts and OEM arrangements. Cisco Capital is ensuring that Cisco remains on top with CLECs by continuing to finance startups like Cogent and Sigma. ONI could possibly be a primary U.S. metro core player at some point, pending a successful completion of the OSMINE process from Telcordia, but Tellabs and Ciena are likely to struggle in this space for the foreseeable future. The RBOCs will probably continue to dominate the market for metro core optical services, instead of cash-strapped and debt-laden service providers, such as XO, MFN, Level 3, Williams and others. Therefore, CIR pre- dicts a much more moderate growth rate of optical gear purchases in the space, based on the historical rate of service introduction by companies like Verizon, SBC, and BellSouth. 8. Phased-array WDMs are imaging devices. They image the field of an input waveguide onto an array of output waveguides in a dispersive way. In phased-array-based devices, the imaging is provided by an array of waveguides, the length of which has been chosen to obtain the required optical/dispersive properties. Phased-array-based devices are simpler and more robust than other devices (such as grating-based devices, which require vertical etching to obtain a vertically etched reflection grating). 9. For example, see S. I. Najafi et al., "Passive and Active Sol-Gel Materials and Devices," SPIE Press CR68 (1997): 253-285; S. I. Najafi et al., "Ultraviolet Light Imprinted Sol-Gel Silical Glass Waveguide Devices," Optics Communications (1996): 128; S. I. Najafi et al., "Sol-Gel Integrated Optics Coupler by Ultraviolet Light Imprinting," Electronics Letters (1995): 31; S. I. Najafi et al., "Ultraviolet Light Imprinted Sol- Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM) Systems Gel Silical Glass Low-Loss Waveguides for Use at 1,550 Nanometers," Optical Engineering (1997): 36; S. I. Najafi et al., "Gratings Fabrication by Ultraviolet Light Imprinting and Embossing in Sol-Gel Silica Glasses," Proceedings of SPI