The bandwidth services market continues to grow at an average rate of 30% year to year, which, is certainly cause for optimism in light of today's depressed telecom market. The flip side however is that service providers have found it difficult to generate a profit from this sector. With depressed economic times usually comes downward pricing pressure. However, CIR's research has found a range of misconceptions about which services are needed within different market segments and how those services can best fulfill the needs of particular customers. CIR's research also finds that:
- The RBOCs still operate the majority of wholesale service termination points, and will continue to do so over the next four years. This translates into the lion's share of the wholesale wavelength and SONET services market...
- When it comes to supplying retail services, particularly in metro/access, the LECs, large and small, are their own worst enemies...
- In spite of all the negative hype about route swapping and IRU accounting practices, the trend of building a business that relies on suppliers as customers is still going strong...
- By 2006, wholesale services will have a revenue of nearly $1.9 billion, but retail services is the more rapidly growing segment, and will see revenue of $2.0 billion in 2006...
- It is worth noting that, although some have said that the growth in wavelength sales has, or will, bring an end to sales of dark fiber, this is clearly not happening...
- Long-distance SONET private lines will grow as corporations add intercity capacity to match faster access circuits. However, as is the case with wholesale private lines, OC-48 and OC-192 will grow more slowly as they compete for customers with wavelengths...
- In spite of all the noise about wavelengths and Ethernet, OC-3 SONET is still the preferred upgrade path for a metro DS-3 customer...
This new CIR report, Bandwidth Services Forecasts: 2003-2006, presents detailed market forecasts of the bandwidth services market over the next four years, based on analysis of demand trends, and interviews with end-users and service providers. The report is a deliverable from CIR's Bandwidth Services track. The market forecasts found within this report are divided into wholesale and retail sectors, then further into the long haul and metro/access markets, by protocol (WDM, SONET and others), and by data-rate, channel count, and reach where appropriate. Graphs are included to show key aspects of each market at-a-glance.
List of Exhibits
- U.S. Bandwidth Services Revenue
- U.S. Wholesale And Retail OC-n And Wavelength Services Revenue
- U.S. Wholesale And Retail OC-n Services Revenue
- U.S. Wholesale and Retail Wavelength Services Revenue
- U.S. Wholesale Long-Haul OC-n Revenue
- U.S. Wholesale Long-Haul Wavelength Sales
- U.S. Wholesale Long-Haul Wavelength Revenue
- U.S. Wholesale Metro/Access OC-n Revenue
- U.S. Wholesale Metro/Access Wavelength Revenue
- U.S. Retail DS-3 Revenue
- U.S. Retail Long-Haul OC-n Revenue
- U.S. Retail Long-Haul Wavelength Revenue
- U.S. Retail Metro/Access OC-n Revenue
- U.S. Retail Metro/Access Wavelength Revenue
- U.S. Other Retail Services Revenue
- U.S. Retail ATM Revenue
- U.S. Retail Ethernet Revenue
- U.S. Retail PON Revenue
- Number of U.S. Wholesale Long-Haul OC-n Service Termination Points
- Number of U.S. Wholesale Long-Haul Wavelength Service Termination Points
- Number of U.S. Office Buildings with Access to Fiber
- Number of U.S. Tenants in FTTB Office Buildings
Executive Summary
- E.1 Introduction
- E.2 The Retailers
- E.3 Wholesale vs. Retail
- E.4 OC-n vs. Wavelength vs. Dark Fiber
- E.5 Long Haul
- E.6 Metro
- E.7 Other Services
- E.8 Network Access
Chapter One: Introduction
- 1.1 Objectives of the Report
- 1.2 Scope of the Report
- 1.3 Methodology Used to Collect Data
- 1.4 Plan of This Report
Chapter Two: Market Overview
- 2.1 The Retailers
- 2.1.1 RBOCs and CLECs
- 2.1.2 Utility Subsidiaries
- 2.2 Wholesale vs. Retail
- 2.3 OC-n Services
- 2.4 Wavelength Services
- 2.5 The Dark-Fiber Market
Chapter Three: Wholesale Services
- 3.1 Long Haul
- 3.1.1 Long-Haul OC-n
- 3.1.2 Long-Haul Wavelengths
- 3.2 Metro
- 3.2.1 Metro OC-n
- 3.2.2 Metro Wavelengths
Chapter Four: Retail Services
- 4.1 Long Haul
- 4.1.1 OC-n Services
- 4.1.2 Wavelength Services
- 4.2 Metro/Access
- 4.2.1 OC-n Services
- 4.2.2 Wavelength Services
- 4.3 Other Retail Services
- 4.3.1 Retail ATM
- 4.3.2 Retail Ethernet
- 4.3.3 Retail PON
Chapter Five: Network Termination Points and Fiber Access
- 5.1 Long-Haul Termination Points
- 5.1.1 OC-n Termination Points
- 5.1.2 Wavelength Termination Points
- 5.2 Fiber Building Access
Acronyms Used In this Report
About the Authors
