Fiber catching fire in Netherlands: Fiber is king in the Netherlands when it comes to growth, a new report from the country's regulator, Authority for Consumers & Markets, says, with Dutch incumbent KPN and its brands holding 40 to 45 percent of the market. Retail fiber connections grew by 129,000 year-over-year in the second quarter of 2013, to more than 6.07 million. Residential fiber connections rose from 302,000 to 407,000 in the same period, Telecompaper reports. However, fiber doesn't yet dominate cable broadband in the speed game: Of the 354,000 connections that are over 100 Mbps, 214,000 are cable. Ziggo, UPC, Tele2 and T-Mobile Online round out the top five broadband providers in the Netherlands. Article (sub. req.)
Asia-Pacific leads telecom services: Comcast (Nasdaq: CMCSA) leads the global pack in terms of cable broadband subscribers, a new Infonetics report on more than 450 telecom service providers reveals, but it also ranks among the top three in VoIP subscribers. NTT ranked first in VoIP subscribers while Orange (NYSE: ORAN) ranked third behind Comcast. In a report that also looks at revenues, capex and opex, China-based telcos dominated. China Telecom topped the list of IPTV providers in terms of subscribers. Release
SDN propels data center market: Software defined networking is on a meteoric growth trajectory, with Dell'Oro Group predicting the market will grow six-fold over the next five years. Ethernet switches and network security appliances will dominate during this period, making up 75 percent of sales. "To put perspective on the order of magnitude of the data center equipment market, in 2013 sales will exceed $100 billion, split among Servers, Storage, Ethernet Switches, and Data Center Appliances, etc. We predict a wide variety of manufacturers will engage in battle for the supremacy of data center spending and control," said Alan Weckel, vice president at Dell'Oro. Release