According to the Dell'Oro Group, the worldwide passive optical networking (PON) market will grow to more than $7 billion by 2022. Next-generation PON technologies, including 10 Gbps EPON, XGS-PON, and NG-PON2, are expected to drive all of the increase, growing at a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of almost 40% from 2017 to 2022.
"Where PON technologies are used for residential broadband services, 2.5 Gbps GPON will remain as the dominant technology due to its lower price and sufficient speeds," said Alam Tamboli, senior analyst at Dell'Oro. "However, for a number of growing use cases such as business services and mobile backhaul, next-generation PON technologies have capacities and capabilities that current generation technologies lack."
"10 Gbps EPON has already begun shipping strongly in China where current generation PON is widely deployed" Tamboli said. "Shipments of XGS-PON and NG-PON2 remain small for now, but we anticipate that XGS-PON will grow more rapidly. XGS-PON and its 10 Gbps symmetric bandwidth should meet operators' needs for business services and mobile backhaul."