The worldwide market for telecommunications infrastructure equipment will exceed $109.9 billion in 2011, increasing at a five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 4.2%. Network equipment sales to service providers performed strongly during the first half of 2007 driven by revenue growth from optical transport, broadband access, and routing and switching equipment.

"Consolidation of major networks and overall network expansion enabling increased wireless backhaul and video distribution to multiple screens will continue to spur service provider investments on new infrastructure for the foreseeable future," said David Emberley, research manager for Telecommunications Equipment at IDC.

Optical networking will reach $13.7 billion at the end of 2011, with the fastest growth expected in the metro WDM space. IP router and switch will continue to experience double digit growth rates year over year, fueled by demand to support new video infrastructure and distribution.

The access market will reach $8.5 billion by 2011, driven by demand for broadband, VoIP, and triple-play services. The wireless share of the telecom infrastructure market will decline to less than half by 2011 as service providers increased investment in wire-line infrastructure.
Legacy equipments including DLCs, ATM switches and SONET/SDH will keep declining through 2011, as carriers continue to migrate their networks to an all-IP architecture.