Revenue Growth Rates Slowing Down as the Market Matures
After several years of double-digit growth, the US wholesale Carrier Ethernet services market revenues growth rates began to slow down in 2015, primarily due to market maturity and slowing demand from mobile network operators completing 4G rollouts. By 2017-2018 revenue growth rates were around mid-single digits and the market was still seeing migration from TDM to Ethernet networks from wireline carriers. In 2019, wholesale carriers started to experience lesser wholesale ethernet revenue growth rates, and only a few saw greater growths, mostly MSOs that are attracting important demand in specific metro regions.
However, ethernet is still not ubiquitously available; hence, the wholesale market will continue growing, albeit with much lower growth rates as compared to the past. Sustained demand for higher capacity by enterprise customers will maintain demand for wholesale ethernet services and MNOs rollout of 5G networks is expected to create opportunities for wholesale ethernet for macrocell backhaul to switching centers; however, there is a mixed effect as MNOs use both dark fiber and ethernet.
This study updates the analysis presented in the 2019 study U.S. Wholesale Carrier Ethernet Services Market Update, 2019 (Stratecast / A314 / 9C). This study presents an in-depth analysis of the key trends impacting the wholesale carrier ethernet services market, and includes market revenue forecasts and market share analysis. The analysis is segmented by: Transport distance (metro versus long haul) and Service Type (dedicated or port-based versus switched or VLAN-aware).