According to a newly published report by Dell’Oro Group, sales of broadband access equipment are expected to decline by 1 percent from 2023, with the first half of 2024 seeing continued weakness followed by an improved spending environment in the second half of the year. Ongoing subsidization efforts, the shift from copper to fiber, and the rollout of cable distributed access architectures will all propel the broadband equipment market from 2025 on.

“Although the inventory corrections seen in 2023 will continue through the first half of 2024, the second half of the year is expected to be the turning point towards renewed growth,” said Jeff Heynen, vice president at Dell’Oro Group. “Service providers still have the same goals of increasing their fiber footprint, increasing the bandwidth they can offer their customers, and improving the reliability of their broadband services through the distribution of intelligence closer to subscribers.”

Additional highlights from the Broadband Access & Home Networking 5-Year January 2024 Forecast Report:

• PON equipment revenue is expected to grow from $10.8 billion in 2023 to $11.8 billion in 2028, driven largely by XGS-PON deployments in North America, EMEA and CALA and early 50 Gbps deployments in China
• Revenue for cable distributed access equipment (virtual CCAP, remote PHY devices, remote MACPHY devices and remote OLTs) is expected to reach $1.3 billion by 2028, as operators continue their DOCSIS 4.0 and early fiber deployment
• Revenue for Fixed Wireless CPE is expected to reach $2.5 billion by 2028, led by shipments of 5G sub-6 GHz and a growing number of 5G mmWave units
• Revenue for Wi-Fi 7 residential routers and broadband CPE with WLAN will reach $9.3 billion by 2028, as the technology is rapidly adopted by consumers and service providers alike.