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Even though last year there was a slight dip from the growth trend, overall carrier Ethernet is still expected to continue growing through 2017, according to the latest Carrier Ethernet Equipment market size and forecast report by Infonetics Research (News - Alert).

The global carrier Ethernet equipment market declined 3 percent to $34 billion last year, in contrast to the big spike of 13 percent growth in 2011, noted the report.

Overall the carrier Ethernet market is still set to grow in the coming years, however.

“We see the carrier Ethernet market growing slow but steady over the next 5 years, reaching about $39 billion in 2017,” said Michael Howard (News - Alert) in a statement, principal analyst for carrier networks and co-founder of Infonetics Research.

 “Carrier Ethernet is now a permanent, inseparable part of service provider networks, and the market has reached a steady state of investment as a result,” he noted.

Of that $39 billion, Asia Pacific is expected to account for the greatest portion of Ethernet equipment revenue. Currently EMEA (Eurpope, the Middle East and Africa) is the second largest market for carrier Ethernet, although Infonectis predicts that North American will pass EMEA for the number two spot by 2017.

There will be roughly 95 million carrier Ethernet ports by 2017, the report predicted, with 10 Gigabit Ethernet growing fast to pass 1 Gigabit Ethernet.

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

“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,” explained Howard.

Analysts at Infonetics have said that the legacy softswitch and trunking gateway market is entering its long-tail phase, as it noted in a report near the end of last year, but the growth in carrier Ethernet is a good sign for softwitch providers.

That’s partially because softswitches are evolving to be more than just IP versions of traditional digital TDM switches. REVE Systems’ iTel Switch Plus, for instance, is a carrier-grade softswitch with integrated billing and interactive voice response.

So while 2012 was a slight dip from the past few years, the future of carrier Ethernet continues to look bright—and with it, the softswitch market as well.