Greater bandwidth requirements, an increase in consumer demand for bundled services, and ambitious plans to upgrade traditional copper networks will trigger global FTTH/B subscriptions to reach 183.9 million by 2015, according to "Fiber-to-the-Home/Building (FTTH/B): A Global Strategic Business Report," a new perspective on fiber-to-the-home/building (FTTH/B) markets from Global Industry Analysts, Inc. (GIA).
Requirements for advanced bandwidth to support HDTV, IPTV, and multi-stream video services; the high maintenance cost of copper infrastructure; enhanced FTTH interoperability; cost savings; and innovations in the optical infrastructure and convergence of multiple services on to a single network are some of the prime reasons for growth of FTTH networks, reads the GIA report.
Given an intensified battleground, the economic success of both existing as well as new service providers will largely depend on the ability to deliver a wide range of offerings including bundled voice, data, and video services for subscribers, GIA asserts.
In an attempt to deploy attractive service packages and capture large volume of subscribers, service providers have invested heavily to replace the traditional last mile networks with an end-to-end fiber access network, in addition to investments in FTTH/B. Also, the liberalization of regulatory regimes in several foreign countries and support from governments for transition to FTTH/B bodes well for the market, says GIA.
The report continues that, although FTTH/B is a capital intensive and long-term strategic investment, economic slowdown will have minimal effect on deployment projects, as operators are expected to continue with scheduled network deployments.
In a seeming paradox, the most spontaneous need to curtail costs in an unfavorable business environment is overridden by a simultaneous need to develop a platform for future growth, according to GIA. Additionally, the recession induced lower infrastructure costs makes an economic case for carriers and network operators to persevere with their project schedules.
Asia-Pacific, including Japan, collectively accounts for about 82% share of the global FTTH/B market estimated by the report in 2009. Asia will continue to be the most favorable market for FTTH/B deployments during the next five years, GIA believes. While the boom in the Asia-Pacific FTTx market over the last few years was primarily driven by mass-scale deployments in South Korea and Japan, the momentum is now clearly pointing towards China.
The number of FTTH/B subscribers in China will continue to expand with a rising number of network deployments, GIA asserts. Service providers are increasingly turning to FTTH as the next-gen residential broadband access technology, predominantly in areas where DSL penetration has reached its maturity and vendors are seeking to increase their ARPUs, the report concludes.
The report provides an industry overview, product overview, product introductions/innovations, profiles of major players, and recent industry activity. The report analyzes the subscriber base for FTTH/B in major geographic markets including North America, Japan, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and Rest of World. The study further analyzes the Asian FTTH/B market by FTTH and FTTB.
