Communications market research firm Infonetics Research has released the first quarter) editions of its Cable Broadband Aggregation Hardware and Subscribers and Broadband CPE and Subscribers reports.

Jeff Heynen, Directing Analyst at Infonetics Research, said that on the heels of record-high revenue in 2008 ($1.23 billion), the cable broadband hardware market held steady in the first quarter of 2009, while the cable CPE segment dropped. “This first quarter slowdown points to a challenging 2009, in which an ailing economy and aggressive telco competition will make adding new broadband subscribers difficult. Still, compared to the overall bloodbath in telecom equipment spending in 1Q09, the cable broadband market was somewhat of a bright spot, and proves that cable operators remain committed to expanding their DOCSIS 3.0 footprint, transitioning from T-CMTS and I-CMTS to M-CMTS architectures, and introducing hybrid IP/QAM video services to support tru2way and DVB-MHP services.”

Highlights of the report include:

– Worldwide cable broadband hardware (CMTS, universal edge QAMs) revenue held steady in 1Q09 from 4Q08, down just 0.2 per cent

– CMTS sales actually inched up a bit (0.9 per cent) in 1Q09 from 4Q08

– Operators are expected to take as much of a break as they can in 2009 to digest all the downstream capacity they deployed in 2008, and also to be more strategic with their DOCSIS 3.0-related rollouts

– Although Cisco leads the overall worldwide market, Arris extended its key revenue share lead in the pivotal North American market by nearly 7 percentage points

– Sales of broadband customer premise equipment (CPE), including DSL, cable, residential gateways, and voice CPE, dropped 8 per cent sequentially in 1Q09 to $945 million

– Growth in the broadband CPE market is expected over the next few years as service providers deploy more integrated (and more expensive) home networking devices to deliver bundled voice, data, and video services with guaranteed QoS

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