While there’s plenty of forward-looking discussion these days about the “10G” future of DOCSIS-powered hybrid fiber coaxial networks, fiber will soon be a far bigger market for network technology vendors.

In fact, according to new research just published by Dell’Oro Group, it won’t even be that close.

By 2023, the global market for passive optical networking (PON) equipment will be worth $7.3 billion, the research firm said, with 10 Gbps EPON and XGS-PON deployments driving growth, along with the maximization of existing 2.5 Gbps GPON networks.

Conversely, global spending on cable infrastructure will only reach $1.6 billion by 2023, Dell’Oro explained, as cable operators “slow their Converged Cable Access Platform (CCAP) purchases while focusing on their Distributed Access Architecture (DAA) deployments.

“Fiber deployments continue to expand around the world, thanks to increased competition and an improved funding environment for both public and private networks,” noted Jeff Heynen research director at Dell’Oro Group. “Today’s XGS-PON trials are quickly moving to production deployments, positioning operators to compete with cable DOCSIS 3.1 networks.”

Heynen’s report predicts the overall broadband access market will grow at a 4% compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) over the forecast period.

Dell’Oro said in March that the global broadband access gear market reached $3.4 billion in 2018.

Arris said it is the first supplier to offer Reference Design Kit (RDK) software on its new lineup of EPON gateways, seizing on a trend that has seen cable operators complement their networks with targeted fiber-to-the-premises (FTTP) deployments.

The move will put those cable operators in position to unify the software stack they are using for broadband gateways that support both their widely deployed hybrid fiber coax (HFC) networks and the small subset of FTTP networks.

RDK is a preintegrated software stack for IP-capable set-tops and gateways that is managed by a joint venture of Comcast, Liberty Global and Charter Communications. RDK has been adapted for both video set-tops (RDK-V) and broadband devices (RDK-B). More than 350 companies spanning CPE makers, silicon vendors, software developers, systems integrators and service providers are currently part of the RDK community.

Service providers that are implementing RDK software include Comcast and Cox Communications in the U.S.; Shaw Communications, Rogers Communications and Videotron in Canada; Liberty Global, NOS, The Quickline Group, Vodafone and Tele Columbus in Europe; and J:COM, Japan’s largest cable operator.

RELATED: RDK Rides the Adoption Wave

Arris said the integration of RDK into its new EPON gateways will provide MSOs with a unified backoffice system for both fiber and DOCSIS architectures while also simplifying elements such as network provisioning. Arris has also tied its own HomeAssure home WiFi management platform into those EPON devices.

Arris said it recently completed its first RDK EPON gateway deployment in the U.S. with an unnamed tier-1 operator (Comcast is one of the known MSO adopters of EPON technology) and has already pushed ahead with “high-volume” RDK deployments on multiple DOCSIS 3.0 and 3.1 gateways.

"Arris’s support of RDK for its global EPON gateways is a testament to the continuous innovation of Arris and also demonstrates the versatility of the RDK open-source software," Steve Heeb, president and GM of RDK Management LLC, said in a statement. "As service providers around the globe look to deploy fiber gateways, RDK provides a common method to manage core functionality, including home networking, IoT interfaces, device management, real time diagnostics, and more."

The worldwide broadband CPE market had an okay first quarter, but it didn’t blow the doors off the place either.

Total revenues hit $2.8 billion in the first quarter of 2015, up 3% year-over-year, but down 2% from the previous quarter, IHS found in a fresh report on the sector. Unit shipments, at 54 million, were flat as service providers expanded fixed broadband service capabilities.

"Overall, the CPE market remains strong, with revenue up 3 percent year-over-year. We expect both DOCSIS 3.1 and G.fast to help add momentum to the cable and DSL CPE market segments and FTTH to continue at its current pace, driven by deployments in China, North America and EMEA," said Jeff Heynen, research director for broadband access and pay TV at IHS, in a statement.

DOCSIS 3.1 is the emerging platform for HFC networks that will support multi-gigabit speeds, with initial deployments expected to start later this year. G.fast is a standard that aims to bring gigabit capabilities to DSL networks when delivered over relatively short loop-lengths and is viewed as a platform that could prolong a telco's migration to FTTP.

IHS said the the top performers in 1Q15 were EPON and fixed LTE, which both saw double-digit percentage increases in unit shipments, and noted that the firm is seeing growth in the market for mobile broadband routers, expecting unit shipments there to jump past 622,000  in 2019. 

Alcatel-Lucent has expanded its portfolio of broadband access products with the FX-12, a fiber-based platform for cable operators that can deliver up to 10 Gbps.

The FX-12, now part the vendor’s 7360 ISAM FX product family, targets high-capacity, large-scale broadband deployments for residential and business-class services, the company said.

FX-12 is a 19 inch-wide high-capacity shelf with 12 line card slots that’s optimized for EPON (both 10G and 1G) in cable networks, and supports DOCSIS provisioning of EPON. DPoE is a CableLabs interop spec that enables MSOs to extend their DOCSIS-style provisioning and other backoffice systems to EPON-based networks.

 “Alcatel-Lucent sees a growing opportunity to address the needs of cable MSOs as they move to embrace fiber-based ultra-broadband access, IP and cloud networking technologies,  Federico Guillén, president of Alcatel-Lucent’s Fixed Access Business Line, said in a statement.

Comcast confirmed that it has recently extended the reach of Extreme 505, a fiber-based broadband service that pumps out 505 Mbps downstream and 100 Mbps upstream, to several systems in its South Division, including Atlanta, Nashville, Jacksonville, and south Florida.

That follows the service’s initial launch in Comcast’s Northeast region in the fall of 2012, and more recently in select cities in its Central Division, including Chicago. Multichannel News reported in February that Comcast was in the process of bringing Extreme 505 to new makets.

Extreme 505 is a fiber-to-the-premises product that uses Metro Ethernet technology that Comcast typically uses to deliver business-class services. After starting off with a 305/65 residential speed offering, Comcast ramped it up to 505/100 last fall, presumably to keep pace with Verizon FiOS’s fastest residential broadband tier at the time, which was 500x100. Verizon has since moved ahead on an upstream upgrade plan that will enable it to deliver symmetrical speeds across all tiers, including 500/500 for its top-end offering. (A deeper analysis on Verizon's upgrade and its potential implication for the cable industry will be featured in the July 28 issue of Multichannel News.)

Comcast currently sells Extreme 505 for $399.95 per month (it tosses in its Constant Guard online security service for free), and requires that customers sign a three-year contract that is subject to an early termination fee.

Extreme 505 is considered a limited fiber-only option Comcast can offer as the cable industry develops DOCSIS 3.1, an emerging CableLabs-specified platform for the hybrid fiber/coax (HFC) network that is targeting capacities of 10 Gbps down and at least 1 Gbps upstream. Widespread deployments of DOCSIS 3.1 technology, which the cable industry will tout under the consumer brand of “Gigasphere,” is still a couple of years away.

Comcast’s current, fastest DOCSIS 3.0-based residential broadband tier supports downstream bursts up to 150 Mbps and upstream speeds up to 20 Mbps.

Verizon's new FiOS upgrades, which seemingly target the downstream-heavy, asymmetrical nature of cable’s DOCSIS platform, and the emerging threat of Google Fiber, is causing the business media to become more attuned to the industry’s relatively limited FTTP activity.

Comcast told The Wall Street Journal that the operator has begun to deploy FTTP in some new residential areas, telling the paper that the costs of building all-fiber networks from scratch are now “similar” to an HFC deployment. Among recent action, the operator has proposed to build an FTTP network for a 530-home neighborhood in Sun Valley, Fla., the paper reported.

Still, building FTTP networks for residential services represents a small part of the U.S. cable industry’s overall activity, and has largely been relegated to greenfields and new home developments where the builder requires service providers to go with an all-fiber network.

Earlier this year, for example, Bright House Networks signed up to build a 1-Gig-capable fiber network that will serve a new 6,000-home development in the Tampa area.

At the same time, CableLabs is working on technologies that will help cable operators use their existing DOCSIS backoffice and provisioning systems on FTTP networks. Following initial work that produced such specs for EPON networks, CableLabs is also developing a way to bring DOCSIS-style provisioning to GPON-based networks.

Also on the FTTP front, CableLabs is proposing to bring unity to those PON standards under a project called “OnePON,” and is looking to facilitate that discussion with the bodies that govern the EPON and GPON technical standards.

Aiming to replicate the work it’s already been doing with EPON, CableLabs has an interoperability initiative underway that will enable cable operators to use DOCSIS-style provisioning on GPON networks.

Those specs, to be called DOCSIS Provisioning of GPON, or DPoG, are currently in the draft/review phase, a CableLabs spokeswoman said via email. “CableLabs anticipates releasing the first public version [of the DPoG specs] later in 2014,” she added.

Some of that work came to light Tuesday, when Calix announced that its Open Link Cable system, already in use by Grande Communications, is designed to align with the emerging DPoG specs and is “based on concepts” introduced by the current DOCSIS Provisioning of EPON (DPoE) specs.

The latest batch of work will pave the way for cable operators to utilize their existing DOCSIS provisioning on both EPON- and GPON-based network deployments, which have been largely relegated to limited greenfield residential buildouts and for fiber-based services tailored for business customers.

The CableLabs DPoE effort has already produced a sizable initial batch of vendors that have achieved qualification for the 1.0 version of the specs, including Alcatel-Lucent, Aurora Networks, CommScope, Huawei, Sumitomo Electric, ZTE, CTDI, and Finisar. Qualification means those products have been deemed interoperable.

In the DPoE world, the DPoE System is analogous to the cable modem termination system (CMTS), while the Optical Network Unit (ONU) behaves as the modem at the customer premises.

Supporting DOCSIS provisioning on GPON will benefit MSOs that use that particular flavor of fiber-to-the-premises technology, rather than limiting it only to operators that have rolled out EPON technologies.

Separately, CableLabs has also sparked an effort that seeks to bring unity to the PON standards governed by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and the International Telecommunications Union (ITU). That CableLabs effort, called “OnePON,” aims to bridge some of the technical differences separating EPON and GPON as the standards bodies move ahead on new generations of those platforms.

The idea for OnePON was spawned after it became increasingly clear that EPON and GPON are naturally coming together through the common use of Ethernet transport, Curtis Knittle, director of optical technologies at CableLabs, said in an earlier interview (subscription required), noting that CableLabs is looking to facilitate that discussion among the standards bodies.

Alcatel-Lucent is the latest to join a growing group of vendors that have achieved CableLabs qualification for EPON network equipment that uses DOCSIS-style provisioning.

According to the results of test wave 106, Alcatel-Lucent achieved qualification for DOCSIS Provisioning of EPON 1.0 for the 7360 ISAM platform, which can support either EPON or GPON. The supplier's MSO-focused EPON product family comes in three different shelf sizes, supporting four, eight or 16 slots.  

Qualification means Alcatel-Lucent’s product is interoperable with other equipment that has gained DPoE 1.0 status from CableLabs.

These cable-tailored EPON systems are made up of the DPoE System, which includes the product Alcatel-Lucent received qualification on, and the DPoE Optical Network Unit. In deployment scenarios, the DPoE System is analogous to the cable modem termination system (CMTS) in the DOCSIS world, while the Optical Network Unit (ONU) behaves as the modem at the customer premises.

CableLabs has awarded similar stamps to Aurora Networks, CommScope, Huawei, Sumitomo Electric, and ZTE for their respective DPoE systems. CableLabs has also qualified DPoE ONUs from Aurora Networks, CTDI, Finisar, Huawei and Sumitomo.

They are entering the fray as U.S. cable operators such as Bright House Networks and Time Warner Cable gravitate to EPON to deliver services over fiber to mid-sized and larger business customers. Bright House is also using EPON for some targeted, new residential environments.

DPoE allows MSOs to offer EPON using the auto-provisioning and backoffice management systems they have in place for DOCSIS modems. The 2.0 version of the specs add more depth and breadth by latching on elements such as IPv6 and more advanced Metro Ethernet Forum services.

But EPON isn’t CableLabs’ only focus.

CableLabs has also sparked an effort that seeks to bring unity to the PON standards governed by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and the International Telecommunications Union (ITU). That CableLabs effort, called “OnePON,” aims to bridge some of the technical differences separating EPON and GPON as the standards bodies move ahead on new generations of those platforms.

The idea for OnePON was spawned after it became increasingly clear that EPON and GPON are naturally coming together through the common use of Ethernet transport, Curtis Knittle, director of optical technologies at CableLabs, said.

“At some point, we can come together and have a single solution; there’s tremendous benefit for service providers and vendors,” Curtis Knittle, director of optical technologies at CableLabs said, in a recent interview, noting that he sees the cable R&D org playing the role of facilitator.

See this CableLabs blog post or this story (subscription required) for more detail on the OnePON initiative.