The worldwide PON OLT and ONT equipment marketgrew 25% to $568 million in 3Q08, reflecting the strong growth of GPONnetwork buildouts in North America and EMEA, the continued growth of EPONsubscribers in Japan and Korea, and the phenomenal growth of EPONinfrastructure in China to support FTTB deployments, says market researchfirm Infonetics Research in a newreport.

The report, PON and FTTHEquipment and Subscribers, shows the overall PON market is on track tofinish the 2008 year up 46% over the previous year and to continue strongdouble-digit annual growth through 2011 as the shift from copper- tofiber-based broadband access drives growth in this market around the world.

"Based on our conversations with PON equipment vendors and networkoperators, we believe FTTH and FTTB deployments will be largely unaffectedby the economic slowdown, as operators who have committed to thesedeployments, including many of the world's largest operators, will stickwith those plans, because fiber-based access is such an important strategicopportunity for them. In fact, operators can now lay fiber at a lower costthan before and, in the case of Asia Pacific, government subsidization ofnationwide fiber buildout efforts provide even more incentive for operatorsto continue with their rollouts," said Jeff Heynen, directinganalyst for broadband and video at Infonetics Research.

Other highlights from thereport:

-- Due primarily to heavy increases in PON deployments in China, where the major operators are deploying EPON-based FTTB networks in major metropolitan areas and will continue to do so through 2011, Infonetics has increased its long-term PON equipment forecast significantly-- Quarter-over-quarter from 2Q08 to 3Q08, the EPON equipment segment is up 38%-- Year-over-year from 3Q07 to 3Q08, the GPON segment is up 269%-- It's a very tight race for overall PON vendor market share, with Mitsubishi and Alcatel-Lucent in the #1 and #2 spots for 3Q08 worldwide revenue, respectively-- Alcatel-Lucent widens its lead in the fast growing GPON segment in 3Q08, now with close to half of all GPON revenue, largely due to its Verizon for FiOS deployments-- Cisco and PacketFront continue running neck and neck in the Ethernet FTTH equipment market, separated by only 1 point in worldwide revenue share in 3Q08-- Worldwide BPON, EPON, and GPON subscribers are forecast to top 46 million in 2011

Infonetics' report tracksAlcatel-Lucent, Allied Telesis, Alloptic, Calix, Ciena (World WidePackets), Cisco, Corecess, ECI, Ericsson, FiberHome, Fujitsu, FurukawaElectric, Hitachi, Huawei, LG Nortel (Novera Optics), Mitsubishi, Motorola,NEC, Nokia Siemens Networks, Occam Networks, PacketFront, Sagem, Samsung,Sumitomo, Telco Systems, Tellabs, UTStarcom, ZTE, and others.

The report provides market share, market size, 2007 to 2011 forecasts, andanalysis for BPON, EPON, GPON, and WDM-PON equipment, FTTH and FTTB OLTsand ONTs, and FTTH and Ethernet FTTH CPE and service provider equipment, aswell as ports (PON, POTS, Ethernet, DSL) and subscribers (PON, PON FTTH,Ethernet FTTH).

Source:Marketwire