Broadband access revenue takes a dip in Q1: report

While 10 Gbps fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) deployments were robust in the first quarter, converged cable access platform (CCAP) spending was down for the second straight quarter, according to a report.

Global revenue for broadband access equipment declined 2% year over year in this year's first quarter, reaching $2.9 billion, according to a report by Dell'Oro Group. Increased shipments of XG-PON1, XGS-PON, NG-PON2 OLT ports, and DOCSIS 3.1 CPE offset cable's CCAP spending, which declined for the second straight quarter.

“The 10 Gbps FTTH deployments continue to build momentum,” said Jeff Heynen, research director, broadband access and home networking at Dell'Oro Group. “The next-gen fiber increases nearly offset the weakness in cable CCAP spending, as cable operators push off new capacity purchases while they determine how to move forward with distributed access architectures."

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During an interview at Cisco Live on Monday, Jonathan Davidson, senior vice president and general manager of Cisco's Service Provider Business, said that while some cable operators were moving aggressively on adopting Remote PH and distributed access architecture (DAA), others are content to sit on the sidelines for now. Davidson said there's an architectural divide in cable, and that normally CableLabs would have instituted commonality across the board for the cable sector.

According to Dell'Oro Group's Q1 2019 Broadband Access Quarterly Report, total cable access concentrator revenue was down 38% year over year to $275 million, driven by the slowdown in CCAP channel purchases in North America and EMEA.

Other highlights from the report include:

• Total DSL port shipments were down 21% year over year, with ADSL ports down 71% and VDSL ports down 20 %

• Total PON OLT port shipments increased 7 percent year over, with XGS-PON ports up a whopping 337%

• Total SOHO WLAN units were up 13% year over driven by the driven by 19% year over year growth in broadband CPE with WLAN and 125% year growth in mesh router units.