In its CMTS and Edge QAM Hardware and Subscribers report, market research firm Infonetics Research analyzed the market for cable modem termination systems (CMTS), edge quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) channels, and cable broadband subscribers.

Due to the double-digit percent declines in North America, Asia Pacific, and EMEA, CMTS port shipments and revenue declined in all world regions in 3Q10, the survey stated. The decline in CMTS sales has caused the overall market down to $352 million worldwide in 3Q10, from $458 in 2Q10, the survey stated. The report tracks various front line companies in this domain which include ARRIS, BigBand, Casa Systems, Cisco Systems, Ericsson (News - Alert), GoBack TV, Harmonic etc.,

“After four quarters of sequential growth, a decline in the cable aggregation market was inevitable, and it happened in the third quarter of 2010, with a 23 percent drop in worldwide revenue (CMTS revenue was down 27 percent; edge QAM revenue was up a bit). In North America, CMTS revenue was down 30 percent, as Comcast (News - Alert) and other operators slowed their DOCSIS 3.0 rollouts," noted Jeff Heynen, directing analyst for broadband access at Infonetics Research.

Because of an uptick in QAM channels shipped for DOCSIS/M-CMTS applications, global edge QAM revenue increased just over 1 percent from 2Q10 to 3Q10, the survey said. Also, increasing its shipments to operators in Asia Pacific and Central and Latin America, Motorola emerged as the only major CMTS vendor to see an increase in port shipments in 3Q10, while Cisco (News - Alert) maintained its lead in worldwide CMTS market share, and also captured more than two-thirds of the North American CMTS market in 3Q10

Recently, the company released excerpts from its “Optical Equipment Features and Vendor Leadership: Global Service Provider Survey” featuring optical vendor ratings by carriers around the world. The survey stated that Ciena, Alcatel-Lucent (News - Alert), and Huawei top the list of vendors that carriers consider to be among the top three optical vendors. The research agency said it has positioned “a surprise vendor” fourth on the list.

Raju Shanbhag is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To read more of Raju’s articles, please visit his columnist page.

Edited by Jaclyn Allard