Telecom Lead India: The carrier Ethernet equipment market declined 3 percent to $34 billion in 2012.

In 2011, the carrier Ethernet equipment market size had increased 13 percent.

Spending on IP edge routers touched $9.4 billion in 2012, the most of any carrier Ethernet equipment segment.

Asia Pacific currently accounts for the greatest portion of carrier Ethernet equipment revenue, followed by EMEA (Europe, the Middle East, and Africa).

Infonetics Research says carrier Ethernet is now a permanent, inseparable part of service provider networks.

The carrier Ethernet market will grow over the next 5 years to $39 billion in 2017.

By 2017, according to Infonetics Research, North America will have passed EMEA to become the 2nd largest carrier Ethernet market.

Carrier Ethernet equipment ports will top 95 million worldwide by 2017, with 10 Gigabit Ethernet growing fast to pass 1 Gigabit Ethernet.

Michael Howard, principal analyst for carrier networks and co-founder of Infonetics Research, said: “Though spending on legacy technologies like SONET/SDH and WDM will decline, investment in IP routers, carrier Ethernet switches, and Ethernet access devices will continue to rise, driven by the move to IP NGN and, of course, growing traffic—particularly video traffic.”
[email protected]