Mobile Video & Cloud Power Wholesale Ethernet Past Retail, Says Heavy Reading

BOSTON, April 30, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Relentlessly rising bandwidth demands – driven largely by the popularity of mobile video and the emergence of the cloud – have triggered tremendous growth in the wholesale Ethernet market, which is expected to greatly outpace the retail sector for the foreseeable future, according to a major new report from Heavy Reading (www.heavyreading.com), the research division of Light Reading (www.lightreading.com).

U.S. Wholesale Ethernet Market Forecast analyzes and projects the growth of the wholesale Ethernet segment over the next four years. It forecasts the wholesale Ethernet market through 2016, analyzed by purchasing service provider types, service topologies, geographic domains and bandwidth levels. The report also profiles 11 major service providers that offer wholesale Ethernet.

This report is based on in-depth interviews Heavy Reading conducted with senior executives and marketing and network professionals from a variety of companies that sell wholesale Ethernet service in the U.S. Companies interviewed included traditional carriers, CLECs, international carriers and MSO cable telephony providers. For the full list of included service providers, please see:
http://twimgs.com/audiencedevelopment/LRHR/PDFS/hr20130425_companies.pdf

"Although wholesale Ethernet is outpacing retail growth, it is being driven by many of the same factors driving retail Ethernet – fundamentally, rapid growth in bandwidth demand in the face of financial strictures and Ethernet's cost and technology advantages compared with longstanding technologies," notes Steve Koppman, Analyst at Large with Heavy Reading and author of the report.

Applications across the board are demanding rapidly increasing bandwidth, with some of the largest and most obvious including video, imaging, the cloud, social networking and smartphone usage, Koppman explains. "Video requires the greatest amounts of bandwidth and has become increasingly ubiquitous, in large part through smartphone use. Estimates suggest that due to its huge bandwidth demands on top of its rapid growth, video accounts for a solid and growing majority of total bandwidth usage."

Key findings of U.S. Wholesale Ethernet Market Forecast include the following:

Wholesale Ethernet will continue to grow at very strong rates, greatly outpacing retail. The U.S. wholesale Ethernet market will grow over the next few years at rates sometimes exceeding 30 percent annually, with a projected five-year CAGR through 2016 of 28 percent.

All three buyer segments contribute aggressively to growth, with wireless leading. With cell backhaul demand fed by the smartphone and video explosions, wireless carriers that have powered this market's boom continue to lead growth at close to 50 percent rates, while wireline and Web-based sectors see strengthening of already high growth levels.

Web-based, non-carrier segment growth is accelerating. This sector has been the smallest and most cost-competitive in the wholesale Ethernet market, but growth is accelerating, and it will be the fastest-growing and eventually the largest segment by later in the forecast period.

100GE is poised to emerge in 2013-2014, albeit gradually at first. 100GE bandwidth appears poised for emergence as a standard service in 2013-2014. The evolution of vendor equipment is likely to gradually reduce costs to foster such new high-bandwidth levels, making them increasingly cost-competitive with current 10GE equipment and services.

U.S. Wholesale Ethernet Market Forecast costs $3,995 and is published in PDF format. The price includes an enterprise license covering all of the employees at the purchaser's company.

For additional information, or to request a free executive summary of this report, please contact:

Dave Williams
Global Director of Sales, Research
Heavy Reading
858-829-8612
dave.williams@heavyreading.com

Press/analyst contact:
Jennifer Baker
Marketing Director, Light Reading Communications Network
617-747-4110
jennifer.baker@ubm.com

About Heavy Reading (www.heavyreading.com)
Heavy Reading is an independent research organization offering deep analysis of emerging telecom trends to network operators, technology suppliers, and investors. Its product portfolio includes in-depth reports that address critical next-generation technology and service issues, market trackers that focus on the telecom industry's most critical technology sectors, exclusive worldwide surveys of network operator decision-makers that identify future purchasing and deployment plans, and a rich array of custom and consulting services that give clients the market intelligence needed to compete successfully in the global telecom industry. As a division of UBM Tech (tech.ubm.com), Heavy Reading contributes to the only integrated business information platform serving the global communications industry.

SOURCE Heavy Reading