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Three trends are driving the edge router market: IP TV carrier Ethernet and multiservice networking.
These are also the reasons that the edge router market is expected to grow 21% this year to just less than $3.2 billion, the same rate of growth for 2005, according to the Dell'Oro Group.
Edge routing is crucial in IP TV for Ethernet and broadband aggregation, and IP services delivery Ethernet and broadband aggregation routers collect thousands of Ethernet and DSL access feeds from subscribers for connection to IP TV content.
IP service edge routers personalize those connections by identifying the subscriber and implementing video subscription policies and preferences to the user/content interaction.
"Video is such a big bandwidth sucker that it's really forced [carriers] out of a mind-set of incremental change to their networks, to network transformation in the aggregation and transport areas," says Mark seery vice president of IP service infrastructure research at RHK/Ovum.
This is where Alcatel has made the most inroads in edge routing. AT&T chose Alcatel as a supplier and integrator for the carrier's Project Lightspeed fiber-to-thenode buildout, which will support IP TV and other broadband applications.
Alcatel's share of the IP aggregation segment in edge routing rose from 9.2% in the second quarter of 2005 to 25.6% in the fourth quarter, according to Synergy Research, caused largely by Project Lightspeed and other IPTV buildouts.
Ethernet service delivery to enterprises is another key growth niche for edge routers. According to Infonetics Research, worldwide Ethernet service revenue was up 132% to $5.9 billion in 2005 and is expected to jump 280% between 2005 and 2009.