Telecom network vendor ZTE is leading the fiber-optic customer premise equipment (CPE) device market in Q3 2014, followed by Huawei.

ZTE is also leading the overall broadband CPE market, while ARRIS is the second and Huawei in the third position during Q3 2014, said ABI Research.

The research agency predicts that the global broadband CPE shipments will grow 9 percent to reach 151.9 million by the end of 2014.

Though DSL and cable CPE device shipments still dominate the market, DSL and cable shipments are likely to drop slightly in 2014, due to slow subscriber net additions. However, as subscribers continue to switch to more advanced broadband access, VDSL and DOCSIS 3.0 device shipments continue to grow robustly.

North America and Europe have the highest VDSL device penetration because operators in Western Europe are upgrading DSL infrastructure with VDSL and VDSL vectoring technologies. Total VDSL CPE shipments in the two regions account for around 50 percent of worldwide VDSL CPE shipments.

DOCSIS 3.0 devices dominate the cable CPE market and ABI Research expects shipments will grow 11 percent in 2014, representing nearly 85 percent of total cable CPE shipments.

The expansion of the fiber-optic broadband subscriber base is a key driver of the growth in fiber-optic CPE shipments. In 2014, fiber-optic CPE shipments are likely to grow around 16 percent to 41 million.

Infonetics Research earlier said that the Alcatel-Lucent, Huawei, and ZTE were the key players in the broadband aggregation equipment market in Q3 2014.

The telecom analysis firm said fourth quarter of 2014 will be a dynamic one for the North American region, with Connect America Fund (CAF) projects getting underway on one hand, while on the other AT&T and other telecom service providers threaten to halt broadband rollouts until there is more clarity on pending net neutrality legislation.

Baburajan K
[email protected]