August 10, 2006 Palo Alto, CA -- Recovering from their disappointing performance during 2001-2003, the world fiber-optic test equipment (FOTE) markets witnessed positive growth in 2004. This trend continued in 2005 and the markets generated revenues of $631.9 million, representing a three percent increase over the previous year.
New analysis from Frost & Sullivan, World Fiber Optic Test Equipment (FOTE) Markets, finds that this market earned revenues of $631.9 million in 2005 and expects to reach $891.7 million in 2012.
"This increase is primarily due to the emergence of new technologies such as reconfigurable optical add/drop multiplexer (ROADM)," remarks Frost & Sullivan Senior Research Analyst Sujan Sami. "ROADM has played a significant part in boosting these markets, particularly for dense wave-division multiplexing test equipment, in various areas of application such as research and development, manufacturing, as well as installation and maintenance."
Compared to the earlier method of manual deployment of DWDM, the ROADM technology helps in delivering superior services with the help of remote software control. Thus, ROADM has had a significant impact on the growth of the FOTE markets and is likely to continue driving revenues throughout the forecast period.
Triple-play services are assuming greater importance in the fiber-optic market, and this is boosting the related FOTE markets. This may be attributed to the ongoing developments in access networks, which assist in deploying triple-play services.
Due to the increasing need in the market for higher bandwidth in the access network, demand for metro area networks has increased exponentially. Most end users of FOTE are choosing this method of bringing higher bandwidth to their customers, thereby further driving the growth of FOTE vendors.
Despite the boost provided by new technologies, upgrading existing test equipment to support these technologies is a considerable challenge for test equipment vendors. Due to the presence of a significant amount of legacy test equipment in the markets, end users are reluctant to invest in new systems unless their older ones need replacement. Therefore, integrating new technologies into a single piece of test equipment could hold the solution to this challenge.
"As compact solutions become increasingly essential to meet end-user demand, test vendors must consider integrating their test solutions into a single piece of equipment," says Sujan. "The key lies in satisfying all the requirements of the end users with a comprehensive test solution."