“Reliability is the watchword when it comes to transceivers.”
NEWS & BUSINESS
EllenManning – see page 10
Global optical transceiver market back to 14% CAGR?
According to the just released LightCounting April 2019 edition of the Optical Communications Market Forecast Report, the global optical transceiver market will be overdue for growth after two slower than expected years in 2017-2018. Most likely, it finds, 2019 will be another slow year. The research company then asks: what would it take to put this market back on track for 20 years of 14% CAGR for 2003-2024. LightCounting reckons it should not take much. This is the company’s short wish list for 2019-2020: China and the United States reach a trade deal in 2019, deployments of 5G roll out A new report by the UK’s House of Lords Select Committee for the Rural Economy, has called on the government to rethink its strategy for the provision of rural broadband across the UK. One of the main criticisms in the report entitled Time for a Strategy for the Rural Economy, is that the Universal Service Obligation (USO), which is the minimum speed infrastructure operators must provide, is set too low at 10Mbps. One witness to the Committee said that while the USO might meet the minimum standards for a small family, it fell far below the standards required by businesses, particularly in regard to the 1Mbps guaranteed upload. The report implies that rural areas of the UK have a high proportion of SMB’s who would require at least 100Mbps for their businesses to thrive. Another point of concern is the £3,400 USO threshold –
2018. Will history repeat itself in 2020-2024? LightCounting states that the problem is that there are too many different next generation products on the roadmap now. Google is deploying 2x200GbE SR8 and FR8 transceivers, Amazon plans to use 4x100G DR4, and Facebook is staying with 100GbE for now, and plans to use 200GbE next. Other cloud companies have not publicly finalised their plans yet. Because of this fragmentation none of the products will reach very high volumes, justifying price declines observed in 2018. This may not be great for the customers, but it would be a well overdue break for suppliers. build out their digital edge strategies, said Equinix. Last autumn, Circle B, Rittal and Switch Datacenters launched the first European Open Compute Project (OCP) Experience Center. managers at enterprises can benefit from the open source data centre technology hyperscalers like Facebook have put to good use to aid their bottom line. Equinix’s south-east Amsterdam campus includes AM1, AM2, AM5 and AM7. The acquired AM11 data centre will now be tethered to AM7, enabling customers to easily interconnect with business ecosystems available on Platform Equinix, which includes cloud service providers and content and digital media companies. Equinix currently operates 200 IBX data centres in 52 markets. Eugene Bergen, president for EMEA Equinix, “Amsterdam is a key interconnection point for Europe, with leading enterprises and cloud service providers making it a primary hub for IT infrastructure. The Experience Center demonstrates how IT
but very steep price declines (up to 50% in 2018) limited growth in sales revenue. Normalised average price of Ethernet transceivers declined from above US$6/ Gbits/s in 2016 to US$3/ Gbits/s in 2018. Despite projected moderation in price declines in 2020- 2024, the normalised price is projected to drop to just above US$1/Gbits/s by 2024. Annual price declines reached -37% in 2018, beating the previous record of -33% set in 2011. The normalised ASPs tend to drop more steeply as shipments of new higher speed product reach high volumes. This was the case with 10GbE in 2011, 40GbE in 2014 and 100GbE in 2017- Equinix has acquired Switch Datacenters’ AMS1 data centre in Amsterdam, Netherlands, in an all- cash transaction for €30m (US$34m). The facility, which will be renamed Equinix AM11 International Business Exchange (IBX) data centre, is in close proximity to Equinix’s existing campus in south- east Amsterdam. Switch Datacenters has two other data centres in the Amsterdam area not subject to the transaction. The acquired facility, Equinix’s ninth data centre in the Amsterdam metro area and the eleventh in the Netherlands, will help meet growing demand for fibre connectivity in the Amsterdam and broader interconnect footprint with Switch buy Equinix expands Dutch
as expected, lifting demand for wireless fronthaul and backhaul optics, shipments of next generation Ethernet modules, including 2x200GbE, 4x100GbE and 400GbE will reach decent volumes in 2020, and price declines in the Ethernet market return to their historical average. The company says the lastpoint is the most critical for the market growth in 2020-2024. Ethernet is already the largest segment of the global optical transceiver market, and it is projected to account for 64% of the total in 2024, up from 45% in 2016. The report finds that demand for 100GbE Ethernet transceivers was very strong in 2017-2018, beyond which home owners or business must bear the additional connection costs. The problem with the USO threshold is that has been structured so that groups of neighbouring properties can share the additional connection costs, meaning the cost of connecting isolated communities and businesses would be a significant burden on their residents and owners. Don Foster, Committee chair, Liberal Democrat peer and former MP for the West Country city of Bath said, “Rural communities and the economies in them have been ignored and underrated for too long. We must act now to reverse this trend, but we can no longer allow the clear inequalities between the urban and rural to continue unchecked. A rural strategy would address challenges and realise potential in struggling and under-performing areas, and allow vibrant and thriving areas to develop further.
House of Lords calls for rethink on UK rural broadband strategy
European markets, as businesses continue to
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| ISSUE 17 | Q2 2019
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