Cisco, Juniper Benefit from Carrier Ethernet Growth
3/4/2008 -- The service provider routing and switching market is a big tent -- and both Cisco Systems Inc. and Juniper Networks have plenty of elbow room. Both vendors grew their share of the high-end routing and switching segment at double-digit clips last year, notching record revenues in a blistering market segment.
That's one upshot of new research from market watcher Infonetics Inc., which found that service providers spent a record amount on routers and switches last year (16 percent more in 2007 than in 2006, according to Infonetics), and that market giants Cisco and Juniper were the primary beneficiaries.
On the whole, router and switch revenues have been on the rebound since they bottomed out in 2003, Infonetics noted, and 2007 was a recent high-water mark.
"The common drivers pushing the carrier router and switch market upward are 1) the ongoing migration to next-generation networks based on IP, MPLS and Ethernet, and 2) growth in consumer broadband, corporate, IP video and mobile data traffic," said Michael Howard, principal analyst and Infonetics co-founder, in a statement.
"Of course," he added, "the traffic jams are being caused by user applications, like music and video downloading, YouTube clips -- even corporations are using YouTube for marketing videos -- online news and social networks like MySpace. As an example, I recently watched video feeds of the Amgen Tour of California bicycle race for a few hours at a time, something not possible a year ago."
For the year, Juniper's growth actually outpaced that of Cisco, 25 percent to 20 percent. Service providers are investing in beefier routers and switches to power new on-demand and broadband video services, Infonetics said, while residential and commercial developers are trying to outdo competitors with more high-tech offerings.
Meanwhile, there's a trend among municipalities (especially in the E.U. and Middle East, (Amsterdam, Stockholm and Dubai, among others) to invest in network upgrades to keep and attract new jobs, Infonetics reported. --Stephen Swoyer
|
