Industry analyst Erik Kreifeldt provides forthright insight into global connectivity and digital infrastructure, informed by a 30-year career in market research, journalism, and events. 

Erik got his start as a scribe for Optics & Photonics News, the membership magazine for Optica, covering optical science for the professional society. Back then, blue-emitting semiconductor lasers were an emerging breakthrough (later garnering a Nobel Prize), and an initial DWDM supplier was a subsidiary of Pirelli—the venerable Italian tire concern.

Following a stint as Editor of weekly newsletter Fiber Optics News, Erik followed his affinity for optical networks into the dot-com boom as Editor of VerticalNet’s Fiber Optics Online. Keeping ahead of the dot-com bust, Erik rode the telecom wave at market research firm RHK, covering passive optical components. 

Once the exuberance over arrayed waveguide grating integration died down, Erik sought safe harbor earning an MBA at Indiana University’s Kelley School. Rather than make a sensible career change to consumer packaged goods, Erik doubled down on networks with TeleGeography, where he covered global transport, transit, and WAN services for nearly two decades. 

Beyond digital infrastructure industry analysis, Erik is a lifelong angler and aquarium keeper. Genealogy currently occupies a third revolving hobby slot that doesn’t involve fish. He lives across the river from Annapolis, Md., but remains fond of the Great Lakes, where his ancestors settled.