A boom in broadband that includes a growing list of IPTV launches is behind a ramping market for telco network gear, according to a new Infonetics Research report.
The report -- which tracks broadband customer-premise devices, digital-subscriber-line hardware and cable-modem-termination-system unit sales -- found that while telco gear sales were up, cable systems fell in the second quarter.
DSL-aggregation hardware, including DSL-access multiplexers, grew 14% in the quarter to $1.8 billion, while CMTS unit sales fell 18% to $211 million. Despite the drop, CMTS revenues rose 15% compared with the same quarter last year, and they are expected to stay strong through 2009, according to Infonetics.
In particular, IP set-top sales rose a whopping 89% compared with the first quarter of this year as service providers begin volume deployments of IPTV. Very-high-data-rate DSL (VDSL) system sales also continued to grow modestly, but the report concluded that asymmetrical DSL and ADSL2+ will provide the bulk of access gear deployed among telcos.
And IP DSLAMs are forecast to more than triple between 2005-09.
In the second quarter, Alcatel and Huawei Technologies maintained the top spots among DSL-aggregation hardware, followed by Lucent Technologies.
"This quarter's growth in DSL port and broadband [customer-premise-device] unit shipments is proof that the race to build out broadband-access networks and sign up subscribers continues unabated," said Jeff Heynen, directing analyst for broadband and IPTV at Infonetics.
