What was the book-to-bill ratio in Q4 2021 
t it's also the worst of times, because you cannot get all the product you need when you need it. We continue to manage but I think it's fair to say there is a meaningful chunk of revenue that we could have realized in this quarter that we push out into the future quarters. And we are only seeing that trend accelerating and continue to get stronger as various European countries embark on running fiber to practically every home and we see more and more programs being rolled out and increasing number of requests coming in. So, fiber continues to be very strong. That said, we are also starting to see a lot more activity around 5G wireless deployment as plans are starting to come to fruition and major operators starting to move to start doing initial deployment. It's clearly still not as big as we expect it to be within the next six months. It's the early stage. But we are seeing the progress being made in that area as well.
Samik Chatterjee -- JPMorgan -- Analyst
That's great. And Oleg, if I can follow up, if you can give us an update on where the processes with EXFO, relative to the different actions you've taken there, what do you think are kind of next steps and as a side note, you have been building cash, you're generating quite a substantial amount of cash now on a yearly basis. Outside of EXFO, what else is kind of in thought process or alternatives that you could explore to use the cash that you're generating?
Oleg Khaykin -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Well, I mean, the cash is not burning hole in our pockets. I mean we remain very disciplined. I mean, in the case of EXFO, devaluation put forward by the Chairman and Founder of the company was a no-brainer for us and we knew full ahead fundamentally there is no deal unless Germain Lamon decides to sell, but we felt it was compelling and necessary for us to put a strong offer on the table to signal the value of the business because it's effectively it's our business as well. And the bullishness with which we view that environment and we will see tomorrow I think is the day when their shareholders get to vote. If they vote to -- majority of the minority shareholders vote to decline the offer, then maybe there'll be further discussions. If they vote to accept it, then they get what they deserve, which is selling their shares subpar. So I mean, there's really not much more to it. In the end, it's really very much up to the Chairman and Founder, what he wants to do with the company. But we felt we owed it to our shareholders to signal that we're not afraid to be aggressive and put an offer on the table. And there are other targets potentially out there and in due time, we'll bring them up to the forefront as well.
Samik Chatterjee -- JPMorgan -- Analyst
Great, thank you. Thanks for taking my questions.
Oleg Khaykin -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Sure. Thanks.
Operator
Your next question comes from the line of Alex Henderson with Needham. Your line is open.
Alex Henderson -- Needham -- Analyst
Thanks. I was hoping you could talk a little bit about the magnitude of the impact from the supply chain challenges. To what degree, your order rate is above 1.0 and how much of that you might have been able to ship had you had the product and any granularity around which particular products were the most impacted?
Oleg Khaykin -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Thank you Alex. Well, I mean the order rate in fourth quarter was significantly above 1 point. I mean -- and by significant I mean by big margin right, which -- we always caution people about book-to-bill ratio because remember a lot of our products are shipped within the same quarter. So clearly, when you have a very big book-to-bill index, it just basically tells you have a pretty good start in the first month of the next quarter. And usually -- especially in NSE most of our products in NE in particular are shipped within three to four months. So it's all going to ship -- a big chunk of it is book ship. The shortages that we see, I mean whereas we are able to pretty much manage most things pretty w
t it's also the worst of times, because you cannot get all the product you need when you need it. We continue to manage but I think it's fair to say there is a meaningful chunk of revenue that we could have realized in this quarter that we push out into the future quarters. And we are only seeing that trend accelerating and continue to get stronger as various European countries embark on running fiber to practically every home and we see more and more programs being rolled out and increasing number of requests coming in. So, fiber continues to be very strong. That said, we are also starting to see a lot more activity around 5G wireless deployment as plans are starting to come to fruition and major operators starting to move to start doing initial deployment. It's clearly still not as big as we expect it to be within the next six months. It's the early stage. But we are seeing the progress being made in that area as well.
Samik Chatterjee -- JPMorgan -- Analyst
That's great. And Oleg, if I can follow up, if you can give us an update on where the processes with EXFO, relative to the different actions you've taken there, what do you think are kind of next steps and as a side note, you have been building cash, you're generating quite a substantial amount of cash now on a yearly basis. Outside of EXFO, what else is kind of in thought process or alternatives that you could explore to use the cash that you're generating?
Oleg Khaykin -- President and Chief Executive Officer
 Well, I mean, the cash is not burning hole in our pockets. I mean we remain very disciplined. I mean, in the case of EXFO, devaluation put forward by the Chairman and Founder of the company was a no-brainer for us and we knew full ahead fundamentally there is no deal unless Germain Lamon decides to sell, but we felt it was compelling and necessary for us to put a strong offer on the table to signal the value of the business because it's effectively it's our business as well. And the bullishness with which we view that environment and we will see tomorrow I think is the day when their shareholders get to vote. If they vote to -- majority of the minority shareholders vote to decline the offer, then maybe there'll be further discussions. If they vote to accept it, then they get what they deserve, which is selling their shares subpar. So I mean, there's really not much more to it. In the end, it's really very much up to the Chairman and Founder, what he wants to do with the company. But we felt we owed it to our shareholders to signal that we're not afraid to be aggressive and put an offer on the table. And there are other targets potentially out there and in due time, we'll bring them up to the forefront as well.
Samik Chatterjee -- JPMorgan -- Analyst
Great, thank you. Thanks for taking my questions.
Oleg Khaykin -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Sure. Thanks.
Operator
Your next question comes from the line of Alex Henderson with Needham. Your line is open.
Alex Henderson -- Needham -- Analyst
Thanks. I was hoping you could talk a little bit about the magnitude of the impact from the supply chain challenges. To what degree, your order rate is above 1.0 and how much of that you might have been able to ship had you had the product and any granularity around which particular products were the most impacted?
Oleg Khaykin -- President and Chief Executive Officer
 Thank you Alex. Well, I mean the order rate in fourth quarter was significantly above 1 point. I mean -- and by significant I mean by big margin right, which -- we always caution people about book-to-bill ratio because remember a lot of our products are shipped within the same quarter. So clearly, when you have a very big book-to-bill index, it just basically tells you have a pretty good start in the first month of the next quarter. And usually -- especially in NSE most of our products in NE in particular are shipped within three to four months. So it's all going to ship -- a big chunk of it is book ship. The shortages that we see, I mean whereas we are able to pretty much manage most things pretty w