Business Services Industry

Impact of ROADM Technology and Migration Toward Triple Play Drive Growth of Fiber Optic Test Equipment Market

Business Wire, Sept 17, 2007

DUBLIN, Ireland -- Research and Markets (http://www.researchandmarkets.com/reports/c68586) has announced the addition of the new Frost & Sullivan Report "World Fiber Optic Test Equipment (FOTE) Markets 2007" to their offering.

This Frost & Sullivan research titled World Fiber Optic Test Equipment (FOTE) Markets provides an overview of the various segments in the total FOTE market as well as an in-depth analysis of the market based on geographic regions, applications, and end users. In this research service, Frost & Sullivan's expert analysts thoroughly examine the following technologies: ROADM, access networks, and metro networks.

Market Overview

Impact of ROADM Technology and Migration toward Triple Play Drive Growth of FOTE Market

The global fiber optic test equipment (FOTE) market registered revenues of $586.1 million in 2006, representing an increase in growth rate of 4.4 percent over the previous year. Recovering from the relative sluggishness of the period 2001-2003, the market began witnessing steady growth from 2004 onwards due to the positive impact of new technologies such as reconfigurable optical add/drop multiplexer (ROADM) and growing deployments in access networks. "The impact of ROADM technology on the FOTE market has been tremendous in application areas such as R&D, manufacturing, and maintenance," remarks the analyst of this research service. "Deployments of this technology are increasing because of its ability to remotely switch traffic from a WDM system at the wavelength layer, resulting in higher growth."

Increased deployments in access and metro networks and the migration toward triple play are also driving demand for FOTE. There has been an intense focus recently on developing next-generation networks that combine data, voice, and video applications on a single platform. Several service providers have started offering integrated triple play test solutions that feature a combination of broadband Internet access, television, and telephony services on a single converged platform. This rising trend has given a considerable boost to FOTE since fiber optics are considered a cost-effective solution to the need for high-bandwidth capacity to provide triple play services over long distances.

Integrated Platforms to Gain an Edge over Dedicated Test Instruments

FOTE can be basically segmented into two types -- dedicated instruments and platforms. Dedicated instruments refer to test equipment for a particular application or testing technology, such as optical time domain reflectometer (OTDR), optical power meter (OPM), and so on while platforms refer to a combination of several test solutions in one box. As telecommunications networks continue to evolve from traditional to next-generation converged networks, technicians are also moving from time domain reflectometer (TDR) and digital subscriber line (DSL) testing to OTDR, optical loss test set (OLTS), and optical spectrum analyzer (OSA) testing due to working in a fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) environment. The higher demands made on technicians is causing a shift toward integrated platforms as this equipment provides both compactness and greater ease-of-use.

Although dedicated instruments have better testing capabilities, they are likely to experience reduced demand as time goes on and technologies advance. Currently, platforms generate approximately 60 per cent of the market revenues, while dedicate instruments account for the remaining 40 percent. "The shift from dedicated instruments to optimized platforms is essentially due to the converged networks requiring more than one dedicated testing such as copper and optical testing," notes the analyst. "This is expected to drive demand for platforms in the future, causing the contribution of dedicated instruments to follow a decreasing trend."

For more information, visit http://www.researchandmarkets.com/reports/c68586.>