Communications and Technology Industry Research

As the drive for bigger, better, faster broadband connections continues, it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that technologies enabling speedier transfer of voice and data services are experiencing growth. That’s exactly what it happening with the 10 Gigabit Ethernet market, Infonetics said in a new report out Tuesday.

 

For those not familiar, 10G Ethernet is the most recently updated Ethernet standard, which provides a data transfer rate of 10 Gigabits per second—ten times faster than the previous Gigabit Ethernet standard.

 

Infonetics sees big things ahead for 10G Ethernet. The firm predicted that port shipments for 10G Ethernet enterprise and service provider equipment will increase from 300,000 in 2006 to more than 3 million by 2010.

 

To come up with that projection, Infonetics examined 10G Ethernet ports and revenues from telecom/datacom equipment. This research revealed that 10G Ethernet ports are the now the most commonly deployed type of Ethernet switches, a trend that looks set to continue. Infonetics predicted that 10G Ethernet will increasingly find applications in other types of platforms, including optical equipment and IP edge routers.

 

Infonetics analyst Matthias Machowinski indicated that archiving, bandwidth hungry applications and backup are the biggest drivers behind growth in Enterprise network traffic, and 10G Ethernet is being deployed to keep up with demand.

 

“This means the enterprise 10GE market will experience sustained and steady growth over the coming years, especially once low-priced copper alternatives hit the market, for which some buyers have been holding out,” Machowinski said in the report.

 

Michael Howard, co-founder of Infonetics and a contributor to the report, added that 10G Ethernet solves two problems for service providers: cost of operations and demand for network capacity.

 

“The primary driver for 10GE for carriers is the need to provide ever-increasing network capacities for bandwidth hungry applications, particularly video, to growing numbers of users, while keeping network expenditures under control,” Howard said in the report. “These trends favor the use of Ethernet technology, which typically has lower price points than other high-bandwidth equipment.”