Houten, The Netherlands, 03 May 2013 - While FTTH is regarded the most future-proof access technology, copper-based access technologies like DSL and Docsis will be able to meet bandwidth demands for several segments of the consumer market for at least another 3-5 years, according to the new report 'Need for Speed: how to keep up with consumer bandwidth requirements' by Telecompaper and partner XS Insight. Building on a usage-based forecast of residential bandwidth demand in the period to 2016, the joint report assesses the ability of different access technologies to accommodate expected market demand.
Discussions on future bandwidth demand often make reference to the same set of public models and studies. A review of these models and studies shows that they are less relevant when it comes to forecasting the needs of individual households and with that the bandwidth requirements of access networks. Furthermore, the forecast growth rates differ widely across models.
The report derives demand forecasts for ten distinct market segments, which are defined by household composition and level of digital literacy. Given the bandwidth requirements of various types of internet services, peak demand is expected to range from 20/1 Mbps for a basic single-person household to 70/4 Mbps for a high-end, five-person household by 2016. Afore mentioned speeds are the actual speeds not the offered speeds. By mapping usage profiles onto speed tiers, the report assesses the ability of respectively DSL, HFC, PON and P2P FTTH networks to accommodate such demand, also taking into account possible future technology upgrades.
Despite the fact that, in theory, each of the above-mentioned access technologies is able to meet current market bandwidth demand, there is no single answer as to what is strategically the best way forward. Given that loop lengths and segment size differ by market and infrastructure, each market and provider calls for its own analy>>
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