Technical Insight
Fiber-to-the-building spurs US optical access growth (Market News)
First mile connections to multi-tenant office buildings remain a strong growth area in spite of the overall slowing of growth rates in the fiber-optics industry. A new report from Communications Indus-try Researchers (CIR) sees the fiber-based competitive and building local exchange carriers (CLECs and BLECs) providing the impetus for growth in the optical access market. The report forecasts that fiber-to-the-building will spur this market to surpass $2 billion by 2005, with the number of fiber-connected buildings growing from 21 000 in 2001 to 43 000 in 2005. The shows the different access systems: optical Ethernet systems will show the largest revenue growth, while free space optical access will develop a significant niche. "Optical Access: Next Generation Technology and Services in the First Mile" is available from CIR for further information see www.cir-inc.com.
