Has cable broadband peaked? After four solid quarters of sequential growth, cable broadband equipment sales fell 23 percent worldwide, Infonetics Research reports. "In North America, CMTS revenue was down 30 percent, as Comcast and other operators slowed their DOCSIS 3.0 rollouts because they've either hit their homes-passed goals or they are waiting on new line cards," said Jeff Heynen, directing analyst for broadband access, who called the decline in the market "inevitable." News release.
NAC appliances to see modest growth: On another note, Infonetics Research, which considered the NAC (Network Access Control) enforcement appliance market a "great standalone opportunity" in the past, says it's now a niche segment with "a relatively low revenue ceiling." With many companies opting for built-in NAC enforcement functionality as part of their new infrastructure purchases (particularly switches), and with the market falling out in 2009, NAC appliance sales are expected to show modest growth to around $400 million by 2014. News release.
High IQ Networks a top trend: Verizon is taking a look at top business trends and has compiled a list of 10 of them for 2011, with "High IQ Networks" topping the list. "These networks -- which comprise ultra-wideband capacity, "super" data centers for the cloud and smart devices for anywhere, personalized applications -- will become the springboard for a new decade of innovation," the company says in a release. Other trends include more investment by IT departments in cloud services, enterprise applications that take advantage of growing 4G technologies, and continued growth of M2M (machine to machine) technologies. News release.
10 Gbps Ethernet still dominates: Sales of 10 Gbps Ethernet controllers and adapters rose 16 percent during the third quarter, according to Dell'Oro Group. "It is not simply the speed of in-and-out traffic that users are seeking with these controllers and adapters, it is the high number of separate virtualized connections that the manufacturers have enabled with their new generation products. For example, on Cisco's recently available home-grown Virtual Interface Card, a user can allocate up to 128 virtual connections in any combination on each port of the adapter," said Tam Dell'Oro, President of Dell'Oro Group. News release.
