Dell'Oro forecasts fast growth for next-gen PON technologies

The worldwide PON market will grow to over $7 billion by 2022, according to a newly published report by Dell’Oro Group, driven by next-generation PON technologies, including 10 Gbps EPON, XGS-PON, and NG-PON2. This represents a compounded annual growth rate of almost 40 percent from 2017 to 2022.

“Where PON technologies are used for residential broadband services, 2.5 Gbps GPON will remain as the dominant technology due to its lower price and sufficient speeds.  However, for a number of growing use cases such as business services and mobile backhaul, next-generation PON technologies have capacities and capabilities that current generation technologies lack,” said Alam Tamboli, Senior Analyst at Dell’Oro Group.

“10 Gbps EPON has already begun shipping strongly in China where current generation PON is widely deployed.  Shipments of XGS-PON and NG-PON2 remain small for now, but we anticipate that XGS-PON will grow more rapidly. XGS-PON and its 10 Gbps symmetric bandwidth should meet operators’ needs for business services and mobile backhaul,” Tamboli added.