Ovum

Huawei ascends to optical networking prominence in $3.6B market

<Did you see the blaze of light as Huawei’s streaked past Alcatel-Lucent on its way to becoming the top optical networking equipment vendor for the first time in Q3? Upsetting long-term record-holder Alcatel-Lucent, Ovum reported Asia-Pacific markets are tearing up the market segment, especially in China, which Ovum said is propelled by 3g mobile network builds. And when China builds, Huawei benefits. Huawei now leads the optical market by almost 3%, Ovum said.

Clearly on a roll, the Del’Oro group reports Huawei is in second place in the mobile networking market in Q3, still far behind Ericsson, but Huawei’s market share went from 11% last year to 20%.

Overall, the optical networking market is down 10% compared to Q308, but global spending still totaled $3.6 billion in Q3 and a recovery appears to be in progress. Several of the top 10 optical vendors have seen improved revenue (including Cisco, Fujitsu, NEC, Tellabs and possibly Nortel), but ZTE, the other Chinese powerhouse, edged out Fujitso for #4. In the hard-knock life category, Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) fell from #5 in Q308 to #8th, behind Tellabs, a year later. Comeback-kid Cisco also edged out Ciena to re-enter the top 10.

New report declares WiMAX a “niche technology” in emerging markets

A couple of years ago, WiMAX was going to be the winner in emerging wireless broadband markets…so said the pundits. Now a new Ovum research report is relegating WiMAX to “niche” technology status. Why niche? Ovum analyst Angel Dobardziev says it’s a combination of technology cost, coverage, vendor support and service provider choices.

The key stumbling block is the cost of customer equipment, which will limit WiMAX use outside business customers, he said.

“WiMAX will play a role, but it will be a far smaller one than many WiMAX players would accept today, WiMAX will fall short of the grand hope of being a mass market broadband technology in emerging markets,” Dobardziev said, estimating that WiMAX will account for less than 5% of the 1.5 billion fixed and mobile broadband access connections in the emerging markets in 2014.

The original hope was that in areas with little existing infrastructure, WiMAX would be the logical Greenfield choice for wireless broadband, but Ovum questions whether there is a really big market for WiMAX in emerging markets. A full two-thirds of the world’s WiMAX networks will be in emerging markets in Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Latin America, but they will have low uptake, Dobardziev said.

“On a non-subsidized basis, it is currently priced and positioned as a broadband option only for businesses or wealthy consumers,” he said. “The cost of customer equipment (CE) remains the key stumbling block for WiMAX operators, where both DSL and HSPA outperform WiMAX with significantly greater economies of scale.”

Tough times make strange bedfellows

Well, maybe not that strange. In his commentary on the recent Vodafone/Telefonica network sharing agreement in Europe, Ovum Analyst Julian Grivolas noted that network sharing is nothing new, but a down economy might make such deals - particularly complicated in this case because it spans four countries - more common.

Grivolas wrote in the commentary Ovum sent over:

This announcement further confirms Vodafone’s positive inclination towards passive network sharing.
In developed countries, 3G coverage requirements and the impact of mobile broadband adoption, in particular on backhaul, are among the main drivers for the adoption of network sharing. On the 2G front, the well-established operators already offer 99% population coverage so there is not much difference in coverage, meaning it makes sense to rationalise costs as much as possible in this domain.

And as FierceTelecom reports, some carriers are trying to push the practice domestically.

Announced in a press release on Thursday, Verizon said it is using its fiber-optic network to provide links to cell towers and mobile switching offices across the country at “ultra-high-quality-levels that are difficult to achieve when using traditional copper-based or microwave links.”

Verizon has plenty of FiOS to go around, apparently, but the article speculates that Cox might be the most likely major buyer as it builds out is own 3G network, but even then Cox has options (primarily, Sprint, who it’s already partnered with on roaming rates).

How else have you seen carriers pushing past their traditionally go-it-alone boundaries during these tough economic times?