* Growth in market for metro Ethernet gear expected to continue
Service providers are building metropolitan-area networks, and increasingly they’re turning to metro Ethernet equipment to make them happen.
Infonetics Research this week issued a report that predicts that, in the five years from 2006 to 2010, a total of $64 billion will be spent on metro Ethernet equipment worldwide.
As evidence, Infonetics offers the 83% jump in worldwide revenue for metro Ethernet gear from 2005 to 2006, which brought it to nearly $9.2 billion. Interestingly, the research firm predicts that revenue to grow just 73% by 2010, to almost $16 billion.
Infonetics counts enterprise-class Ethernet switches and routers as a metro Ethernet equipment category, but that category didn’t grow in 2006. Instead, carrier Ethernet switches and routers, Ethernet over DSL and cable equipment, EPON equipment, and Ethernet access devices all posted triple-digit growth, according to Infonetics.
Ethernet access devices are a particularly hot area. The market for those devices more than doubled last year, and Infonetics expects the market to more than quadruple by 2010. These are used to connect customers to carriers, or carriers to other carriers. Mobile backhaul is another application where they will be used. ADVA Optical leads worldwide revenue in this segment.
Tens of millions of Gigabit and 10 Gigabit Ethernet ports are already in metropolitan-area networks around the world. Infonetics sees service providers replacing their SONET/SDH equipment with Ethernet equipment. Deterministic connection tunnels, reliability, quality of service and resiliency are all being built into Ethernet, making it a more appealing option all the time.
Revenue last year was largely divided into thirds – a third coming from North America, a third coming from the Asia Pacific region, and Europe, the Middle East and Africa making up most of the rest.
