PON Equipment Market Tops $2 Billion in 2009

CAMPBELL, CA — Worldwide PON equipment revenue jumped 26 percent sequentially in 4Q09, driven by increased spending on EPON equipment in China, according to a new report from Infonetics Research. The major Chinese operators, which are building out fiber to the building, look to pass nearly 25 million homes this year with a combination of ADSL and Fast Ethernet connections via multiservice access platforms (MSAPs), fed by EPON links for network-side access.

"GPON deployments also shot up this quarter, thanks to a major increase in GPON shipments to China Mobile and China Telecom, as well as continued bulk OLT and ONT shipments to [Indian telco] BSNL as part of their 700,000-line GPON buildout,” notes Jeff Heynen, directing analyst for broadband and video at Infonetics Research.

• For the 2009 year, worldwide PON equipment revenue hit $2.18 billion, up 35 percent from 2008, and is forecast by Infonetics Research to more than double by 2014.


• Tier 3 operators and municipalities in the United States, using broadband stimulus funds, will help power the active Ethernet FTTH market in the coming year, especially after Google's announcement that it will be working with munis to deploy a fiber network capable of delivering 1 Gbps of bandwidth to subscribers.


• Active Ethernet FTTH and PON FTTH subscribers are forecast by Infonetics to top 100 million worldwide by 2014.