Research Scope

The scope of the study is the fiber to the "X" (FTTx) market which comprises the various methods of connecting fiber optic cable and equipment between the central office and residential homes and apartment buildings. FTTx refers to that point in a network where the fiber stops and another technology, such as VDSL2+ (very digital subscriber line 2), with high-quality copper cable, takes over. There are methods currently used to place fiber in a network, and many technologies are being run over the network, such as passive optical networks (PON) and active optical networks (AON). Major Telco customers are choosing technology on the basis of available infrastructure and demand from residential customers. 

Research Highlights

This study highlights the market trends, drivers, challenges, and restraints for equipment vendors selling FTTx equipment to service providers. It also discusses many issues the service providers face in order to meet the demands of this market. 

The study also explores growth opportunities for vendors in the FTTx global optical access infrastructure market and identifies potential business models. Wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) PON adds multiple wavelengths in the fiber to increase capacity in the access technology system. Although physically it is similar to time division multiplexing (TDM) based passive optical network (PON) technologies, logically it is a point-to-point scheme. Each optical network terminal (ONT) at the subscriber has a dedicated wavelength and there is no time sharing of bandwidth. The limit to the bandwidth that the user can receive depends on what the wavelength can carry. Fiber deep, 4G long-term evolution (LTE) plus, and FTTH fast are driving FTTx optical access infrastructure. A cornerstone of 5G, C-RAN, along with fiber-to-the-antenna (FTTA) and distributed antenna system (DAS) deployments is expected to grow at a parallel pace, driving front-haul deployments involving fiber. The three traffic profiles defined by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) for 5G services—high throughput, low energy, and low latency—are expected to put significant strain on the mobile front haul, generating a major fiber build-out to support the requirements from 5G services. 

This Frost & Sullivan research sizes the market from the perspective of vendors (base year 2019) and forecast in terms of revenues from 2019 to 2025. The study also explores growth opportunities for vendors in the FTTx global optical access infrastructure market and identifies potential business models.

Author: Carina Goncalves