The market for telecom transceivers and transponders modules will grow from $1.5 billion in 2008 to $4.8 billion in 2013, according to a new report from industry analyst firm CIR (www.cir-inc.com).
The sweet spot for module makers is still in the 10-Gbit/sec space, supporting the growing deployment of OC-192 in the metro and, to a lesser extent, in the access networks. The trend toward replacing 300-pin, XENPAK, X2, and XPAK with XFP (including XFP-E) and SFP+ presents numerous opportunities, say CIR analysts. Key competitive factors in the OC-192 SONET/SDH sector will include higher densities, lower power consumption, and improved reach. By 2013, the value of OC-192 modules shipped will be more than $450 million.
According to CIR, the global shift from TDM to WDM is underway, and the long-prophesied all-optical network is finally becoming a reality�spurred on by growing bandwidth demands and by the more flexible bandwidth management in WDM equipment. In this segment, many of the opportunities have to do with tunability, a technique whose capabilities have yet to be fully explored, CIR analysts report. At the module level, this translates into demand for more tunable modules (especially pluggable ones) and the ability to bring cost points down to where tunables can be used more widely in metro (and perhaps even in access) networks. By 2013, more than $1.8 billion in WDM modules will be shipped.
The PON market continues to create a buoyant market for diplexers, triplexers, as well as conventional SFP transceiver modules. By 2013, PON transceivers will represent the largest sector of the telecom modules market with $2.4 billion in revenues, the report estimates.
The report, "Telecom transceiver and transponder markets: The next five years," provides CIR's latest forecasts of transceivers and transponders for the public networking environment for the years 2008 to 2013. Detailed volume and value forecasts are provided for each protocol covered and are broken out by data rates, MSA, technology platform, and reach.