More than 70 percent of operators that responded to a newly released survey have named Alcatel-Lucent the top fiber-to-the-home vendor.
That's just one of the findings revealed in Infonetics Research's new report, "Next Gen PON, FTTH and VDSL Deployment Strategies and Vendor Leadership: Global Service Provider Survey," which explores operators' plans for next-generation fixed access technologies as well as the business and application drivers for investment in fixed broadband networks.
"It's become a challenge for operators to know how much to invest in fixed broadband networks and services," said Jeff Heynen, directing analyst for broadband access and pay TV at Infonetics Research. "On one hand, fixed broadband is among the most profitable services a provider can offer. On the other hand, the investment required to roll out or upgrade mobile networks is eating into their available capital."
Forty percent of the operators surveyed said they plan to offer 100+ Mbps connections by 2015, but there isn't a corresponding interest now in investing in the next-gen technologies that enable those speeds; and 78 percent of respondents have already deployed 2.5G GPON, growing to 87 percent by 2013.
"What our latest broadband access survey reveals is that the transition to next-generation fixed access technologies (10G EPON, XGPON1, variants of WDM-PON) will take longer than many in the industry had hoped," Heynen added. "The fundamental drivers are there, but they aren't pressing enough to force a wholesale shift in deployment timelines, and they don't outweigh the higher costs of next-gen equipment. While most of the operators we interviewed plan to wait until next-generation pricing achieves parity with current generation technologies before investing heavily, their current thinking about vendors and what will drive them to eventually invest should prove interesting to any player in this space."
Service providers surveyed gave the highest marks to FTTH vendors Alcatel-Lucent and Calix for technology innovation, product reliability, and management software.
