Cable operators significantly picked up their infrastructure spending in the third quarter of 2020, according to Dell’Oro Group. The market research firm states in its 3Q 2020 Broadband Access Quarterly Report that spending on cable infrastructure and CPE during the quarter topped $1 billion for the first time since 2018.
Total cable access concentrator revenue climbed 6% versus the year-ago quarter to reach $280 million, thanks to growth in CCAP license purchases in North America, EMEA, and CALA. Overall spending on broadband access gear worldwide improved by 1% versus the third quarter of 2019, with the cable infrastructure and CPE spending combining with continued strong sales of PON equipment to move the quarter into the black.
“The COVID-19 pandemic continues to accelerate operators’ fiber and cable capacity expansions,” commented Jeff Heynen, vice president, broadband access and home networking at Dell’Oro. “The net result is a faster transition to premium 1-Gbps residential services.”
The focus on supporting higher-grade broadband services extended to WiFi networks, as total mesh router unit shipments reached 7.3 million units during 3Q20 as well.
The increase in cable operator spending is significant, in that Dell’Oro expressed the expectation in a report this past July that operators had successfully used reserve capacity on existing systems to meet rising customer requirements as well as pushed out spending on Distributed Access Architecture projects (see “Broadband access equipment spending to drop 7% in 2020: Dell'Oro”).
Dell’Oro’s Broadband Access and Home Networking Quarterly Report provides an overview of the broadband access market with tables covering manufacturers’ revenue, average selling prices, and port/unit shipments for cable, DSL, and PON equipment. Covered equipment includes Converged Cable Access Platforms (CCAP) and Distributed Access Architectures (DAA); DSLAMs by technology (ADSL/ADSL2+, G.SHDSL, VDSL, VDSL Profile 35b, and G.fast); PON optical line terminals (OLTs); cable, DSL, and PON CPE; and SOHO WLAN equipment, including mesh routers.