As more service providers expanded their respective VDSL and GPON-based networks this year, it drove strong spending in wireline broadband access network equipment.
Strong PON spending by China's major service providers in addition to DSL growth in Central and Latin America and VDSL and GPON growth in EMEA created what Jeff Heynen, directing analyst for broadband access and video at Infonetics Research, said was "a perfect storm of spending this year."
While this uptick in spending certainly a nice near term boost for the vendor community, Heynen is quick to point out in its Q3 2011 PON, FTTH, and DSL Aggregation Equipment and Subscribers market share and forecast report that "with peaks come valleys." By 2015, Infonetics forecast that the broadband aggregation market will decline to $5.0 billion, from $7.9 billion in 2011.
On the vendor side, Huawei and ZTE hang onto their broadband aggregation equipment lead. However, Huawei's revenue slipped while ZTE's rose. Taking the third and fourth spots were Alcatel-Lucent and ADTRAN (Nasdaq: ADTN) with strong North America DSL sales.
From a broadband technology perspective, global spending on DSL equipment declined nine percent due to a slowdown in some major projects and the fact that the seasonal Q3 slowness. Alternatively, EPON optical line terminal (OLT) revenue in Japan was up 16 percent in Q3 2011 with incumbent telcos NTT and KDDI expanding their respective Fiber to the Home (FTTH) network spending to convert FTTB+VDSL subscribers to FTTH.
For more:
- see the release
Special Report: Wireline in the third quarter 2011
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