A new report from Global Information (GII) states that the global structured cabling market has been characterized by its stable growth over the past several years, with the market growing at a compound annual growth rate of 6.8% to reach $5.6 billion in 2011. Growth in the structured cabling market is expected to exceed $8 billion by 2015.
The ongoing battle between copper and fiber systems persists, contends the report. Fiber has taken a foothold in the network at 10G. According to the report, fiber-optic products are poised to steadily take market share from copper products in the structured cabling market over the next five years. However, while the copper structured cabling market is expected to shrink, there is still potential to recognize revenues, particularly in Cat 6 UTP for Gigabit Ethernet and Cat 7 for 10G, finds the study.
See also: Why the copper vs. fiber war is over
While the US still dominates the structured cabling market overall, China and the Asia Pacific region show the most growth potential over the next five years, adds the research. The success of Gigabit Ethernet correlates to its strong presence with structured cabling, adds the study. 1000Base-T, 10G over twisted-pair copper (10GBase-T) holds the promise of being less costly than its optical competitor, 10GBase-SR, says GII.
"It seems that high power consumption has been a market inhibitor," comments an analyst for the firm. "As power consumption efficiency is resolved through advances in transceiver-chip lithography, advances in driving down power consumption are breaking through."
An Executive Summary of report and free sample pages from the full document are available here.