North American PON Spending Jumps 26 Percent Y/Y; Cable Remote OLT Ports Shipment Up 190 Percent Y/Y
REDWOOD CITY, Calif. – September 8, 2026 – According to a recently published report from Dell’Oro Group, the trusted source for market information about the telecommunications, security, networks, and data center industries, total global revenue for the Broadband Access equipment market reached $4.5 B in 2Q 2026, down 3 percent year-over-year (Y/Y). North American telco and cable operators bucked the downward trend as they continued to invest in major fiber and DOCSIS 4.0 network upgrades in the quarter, despite higher costs for both infrastructure and CPE due to the ongoing shortages of memory and other components.
“North American operators are moving quickly to expand and turn up their fiber networks, and the result has been three consecutive quarters of Y/Y growth in spending on PON equipment that is reminiscent of the boom year of 2022,” said Jeff Heynen, Vice President with Dell’Oro Group. “Clearly, operators are pulling forward equipment purchases once again to stay ahead of increasing ASPs for both OLTs and ONTs,” explained Heynen.
Additional highlights from the 2Q 2026 Broadband Access and Home Networking quarterly report:
- Residential Wi-Fi 7 Router shipments continued their impressive growth, increasing 62 percent Y/Y, driven by lower-cost dual-band units shipping in China and Southeast Asia, as well as US operators pulling forward purchases to support their multi-gig service offerings.
- Cable operators are modernizing their networks through sustained Remote PHY Device (RPD) and Remote OLT (R-OLT) purchases, with combined revenue for those platforms jumping 63 percent Y/Y.
- FWA CPE unit shipments declined 12 percent Y/Y, driven largely by a slowdown in new unit sales in the North American market.
The Dell’Oro Group Broadband Access and Home Networking Quarterly Report provides a complete overview of the Broadband Access market with tables covering manufacturers’ revenue, average selling prices, and port/unit shipments for Cable, DSL, and PON equipment. Covered equipment includes Converged Cable Access Platforms (CCAP) and Distributed Access Architectures (DAA); Digital Subscriber Line Access Multiplexers ([DSLAMs] by technology VDSL, VDSL Profile 35b, and G.FAST); PON Optical Line Terminals (OLTs), Cable, DSL, and PON CPE (Customer Premises Equipment); Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) CPE; and Residential WLAN Equipment, including Mesh Routers. For more information about the report, please contact dgsales@delloro.com.
About Dell’Oro Group
Dell’Oro Group is a market research firm that specializes in strategic competitive analysis in the telecommunications, security, enterprise networks, data center infrastructure, and network security markets. Our firm provides in-depth quantitative data and qualitative analysis to facilitate critical, fact-based business decisions. For more information, contact Dell’Oro Group at +1.650.622.9400 or visit https://www.delloro.com.
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