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"Is DSL finally dying?" No!
Tuesday, 24 May 2011 17:11

grim_reaper_eyehook.comJeff Heynan at Infonetics reported a double-digit drop in DSL equipment sales, inspiring Dan O'Shea at Telephony to headline "Is DSL Finally Dying?" Both note that DSL sales in Q1 were actually ahead of the same month last year. Yet Dan writes "Fiber is the future." Given that less than 30% of the U.S. is likely to be served by fiber this decade, that's quite a statement. Europe's figure is similar. There's little reason to expect much change next decade, as wireless gets increasingly central. John Cioffi was told to forget about DSL in 1990 because "fiber was the future." I think I remember John say "fiber is the future and it always will be." But DSL is the present for the vast majority of North America outside of Verizon territory. Europe varies by country, but DSL is likely more common than fiber across the continent for at least another decade.

     Heynan does report one crucial trend: more and more PON going into China.


The Chinese reality is hard to establish, but major fiber volume is consistent with what I've seen. The Chinese telcos are 80% or so government owned and the ministry has shown they can CEOs at will. They mostly run as though they are private companies, with executive careers dependent on profitability. The government wants "fiber" because "fiber is the future," of course. The carriers have a shorter time horizon and are resisting the investment. Fiber in new builds makes sense and is becoming standard in most of the world. There are enough new builds in China to add millions of lines. It's hard to separate fact from rumor about how much fiber is replacing DSL; readers with insight, please write or call.

          Deutsche Telekom, British Telecom, AT&T, Bell Canada, Century/Qwest and many other carriers have made clear they will use DSL, not fiber, for the majority of lines because it's cheaper. Increasingly, that's DSL from a neighborhood DSLAM (FTTN) with short loops that will soon be capable of 100 megabits through bonding and vectoring.


 


DSL equipment market plunges, PON jumps, as broadband market shifts from copper to fiber
 

Campbell, CALIFORNIA, May 23, 2011—Market research firm Infonetics Research today released excerpts from its first quarter (1Q11) PON, FTTH, and DSL Aggregation Equipment and Subscribers preliminary vendor market share report.

ANALYST NOTE

“The major story in the broadband aggregation equipment market this quarter is the dramatic drop in DSL ports in China, which points to operators there continuing their dramatic shift away from DSL. The first quarter is typically one of the slowest for DSL, but the seasonal effect was worsened by Chinese operators’ continued shift away from traditional DSLAM deployments. Also, voice ports (DS0s) on FTTB/MXU MSAPs in Asia dropped significantly, signaling a shift away from adding voice lines to simply installing DSL ports,” notes Jeff Heynen, directing analyst for broadband access at Infonetics Research.

PON, FTTH, AND DSL AGGREGATION MARKET HIGHLIGHTS

  • The DSL, PON, and Ethernet FTTH equipment market reversed its small fourth quarter gain with a 2% decline in 1Q11, dipping to $1.96 billion worldwide
  • The overall market’s decline was led by a double-digit sequential drop in DSL infrastructure spending in all regions
  • Despite the sequential declines, the DSL equipment market is up 36% year-over-year (1Q11 vs. 1Q10)
  • The worldwide PON market jumped 20% in 1Q11 over 4Q10, surpassing the $1.0 billion threshold for the first time ever
  • Driven by the Chinese operators and sustained growth in Japan and Korea, worldwide EPON spending was up a whopping 46% in 1Q11 over 4Q10
  • The North American GPON market should regain its momentum over the next few quarters, as Verizon re-initiates its FiOS buildout and Broadband Stimulus deployments continue
  • Calix’s Ethernet FTTH equipment revenue shot up 222% this quarter, as they capitalized on Broadband Stimulus grants to help US carriers roll out Ethernet FTTH networks
  • Huawei and ZTE benefited the most from the Chinese operators’ spending spree on EPON and GPON equipment this quarter, despite being equally hammered by the decline in spending on DSL equipment


REPORT SYNOPSIS

Infonetics’ quarterly PON, FTTH, and DSL Aggregation report provides worldwide and regional market size, market share, analysis, and forecasts through 2015 (full report and forecasts published May 31). The report tracks DSL aggregation, MSAPs, next gen DLCs, ATM and IP DSLAMs, ports (ADSL, G.SHDSL, VDSL, PON OLT, Ethernet OLT, and DS0s), and DSL subscribers (ADSL/ADSL2+, VDSL/VDSL2, and G.SHDSL). The report also tracks BPON, 1.25G/2.5G EPON, 2.5G GPON, 10G EPON, 10G GPON (OLT and ONTs), and Ethernet FTHH by CPE and service provider equipment. Companies tracked include ADTRAN, Alcatel-Lucent, Allied Telesis, Calix, Ciena, Corecess, Dasan, ECI, Enablence, Ericsson, Fujitsu, Huawei, Iskratel, Millinet, Motorola, NEC, Nokia Siemens, Samsung, Sumitomo, Tellabs, UTStarcom, Zhone, ZTE, ZyXEL, and others. Regions tracked in the report include Asia Pacific (with breakouts for China, Japan and the rest of Asia), Central and Latin America (CALA), EMEA (Europe, Middle East, Africa), North America, and worldwide.

 

and this is similar from Ovum

Ovum: 1Q FTTX growth dramatic; DSL not so much

June 3, 2011

Market research and analysis firm Ovum reports that next-generation access (NGA) network upgrades led to “dramatic” growth in the FTTX and cable modem termination system (CMTS) markets during the first quarter of 2011. The news wasn’t so good for makers of DSL equipment, Ovum says in its new market share report, Market Share Alert: 1Q11 FTTx, DSL, and CMTS.

Ovum says the number of PON optical line terminal (OLT) ports for fiber to the home (FTTH) and building (FTTB) applications reached 988,889 in the first quarter of 2011. This represented an increase of 35 percent from the fourth quarter of 2010 and 182 percent versus the same quarter a year ago. Asia-Pacific accounted for 93 percent of the total, which was good news for Huawei, ZTE, and FiberHome. The three Chinese PON equipment suppliers occupied the first three places for PON OLT port shipments in the quarter, Ovum says.

“Shipments also jumped in the Europe, Middle East, and Africa region and in the South and Central America region to their highest levels ever,” Kamalini Ganguly, Ovum analyst and author of the new market report, added.

But DSL technology largely was left out of the upgrade activity. The market edged down 5 percent when compared to the last quarter of 2010. Ovum says it expected the decrease due to normal seasonal trends; it was consistent with the 4 percent sequential drop in the first quarter of 2010 and 2009. However, Ovum adds that DSL growth has slowed or turned negative in some countries, with DSL links replaced by FTTB or FTTH connections.

However, the news for DSL wasn’t all bad. Said Ganguly, “Despite the sequential drop in the first quarter of 2011, year-on-year shipments were higher in all regions, many supported by upgrades related to FTTN [fiber to the node] and FTTB rollouts. In fact, the first quarter of 2011 was another record quarter for VDSL2 shipments, which crested to 4.8 million ports.”

According to Ovum’s market analysis, Alcatel-Lucent currently leads the VDSL/VDSL2 market with 42 percent market share, followed by Huawei with 22 percent and Ericsson with 8 percent.

Ovum’s findings largely agreed with those of Infonetics Research, which released its 1Q11 figures last month (see “Infonetics: 1Q11 PON sales jump while DSL plunges”). Infonetics reported the total market space for all three technologies in the quarter was $1.96 billion worldwide.
Last Updated on Friday, 03 June 2011 19:34