Will large numbers of us start getting “triple play” ” video, Internet and telephone services ” via optical fiber within the next year? It’s unlikely. But that day will come, thanks to the rapidly expanding reach of fiber-to-the-home infrastructure.
That is why, according to a new study from ABI Research, the major opportunities in the fiber-to-the-premises market today, lie with equipment vendors. It is they who will provide the infrastructure that will make it possible.
“Until now,” says Vamsi Sistla, director of broadband and residential entertainment technologies, “everybody has been concentrating on the RBOCS (regional Bell operating companies), such as Verizon and SBC. They have been seen as the ‘prize bull’ opportunities for vendors; but to mix a metaphor, there are many other branches where equipment and infrastructure vendors can pick the ‘low-hanging fruit’.”
Real estate developments, municipalities, utilities, CLECS and RLECS (competitive and rural local exchange carriers) – all these are optimistically embracing this chance to compete with cable and DSL vendors, or the RBOC giants. Fiber levels the playing-field for them.
The increasing trend towards building “smart homes” will also spur demand for fiber infrastructure, says Sistla, adding “we’ve also seen municipalities and local authorities right across the globe grouping together to deploy fiber, in highly successful projects. Other local organizations look at that success and catch ‘fiber fever’ too, seeing a chance to make money while benefiting the community.” Local and state governments, facing losses of tariff income due to the gradual replacement of conventional phone traffic with VoIP calls, are glad to support a new revenue stream.
ABI Research’s new study “Fiber to the Premises (FTTH / FTTP)” focuses on the FTTP market, first looking at the technology issues involved with FTTP platforms and then assessing the FTTP market in terms of subscribers, network builds, equipment market, per-subscriber costs, and the services that will drive FTTP adoption.