Another round from the number-crunchers:
• A good 65 million American homes use the Internet, says Gartner Dataquest, an 8.4 million user jump since November 2000. Cable modem subscribers comprised more than 50 percent of online high-speed homes.
“Cable providers are making a more concerted effort to sell cable modems, while the RBOCs, … have not taken up the cable TV challenge in the residential market, focusing instead on the business segment,” says senior analyst Peggy Schoener. She adds that cable modem providers are better at the “customer installation experience” than DSL providers, even as DSL prices have risen and ILECs cut back rollout plans.
The study says 61 percent of all users are actively online and once on, keep getting online. Ninety percent would continue their subscriptions, the study says, and 20 percent of optimistic dial-up users say they expect to use high-speed connections by mid-2002.
“There is not indication that this demand will abate over the next 12 months,” says Gartner analyst Amanda Sabia. She predicted an even higher growth rate for broadband connectivity “if the regional Bell operating companies were deploying DSL more aggressively.”
• Micro Electro Mechanical Systems technology will be key in advanced components needed to maximize telecom carriers’ fiber optic cable investments, says a study by Cahners In-Stat Group, a division of CED magazine’s parent company. The study says sales of MEMS for optical networking use will reach $2.3 billion in 2005 from the paltry $67 million in 2001. All this despite layoffs, funding “mishaps” and scaled back business plans of MEMS manufacturers in the market, say an In-Stat analyst.
More to the point, the niche has seen new applications emerge, In-Stat says; along with the traditional switches, the market has seen MEMS-based variable optical attenuators, tunable filters and tunable lasers. Movement will start in Q4 and increase in early 2002.
• China’s optical transport market could reach $1.9 billion for the year, after a solid $1.1 billion showing in the first half of the year, RHK says. Huawei led the market with a 32 percent share, up from its 27 percent piece a year ago.
