Dell’Oro reports shipments of fixed wireless customer equipment rose 11% in 2025 and passive optical customer kit grew 4% during that time, ending a three-year decline
According to a report from Dell’Oro Group, total global revenue for the broadband access equipment market increased to $4.8 billion in 4Q 2025, up 7% on the previous quarter and 2% year-on-year.
The acceleration in spending during Q4 was not enough to push 2025 into positive year-on-year growth, but the analyst house says it was an early indicator of what is expected to be a strong 2026.
“2025 ended up being the final year of a three-year cycle of reduced spending on broadband access equipment,” said Jeff Heynen, Vice President with Dell’Oro Group. “Over the last three years, broadband service providers have been carefully managing their equipment spending, focusing on subscriber acquisition and more measured footprint expansions. As a result, there was a clear shift in spend away from infrastructure and towards CPE.”
Other highlights from the Q4 Broadband Access and Home Networking quarterly report include:
- optical network terminals (ONT) for passive optical networks (PONs) reached 158 million, with nearly all the world’s regions notching up substantial year on year gains to support new subscriber growth.
- Spending on DOCSIS infrastructure declined 21% from 2024, with spending on remote physical RF layer (PHY) devices dropping 47% for the year. Spending is expected to increase significantly throughout 2026, as major cablecos accelerate their distributed access architecture (DAA) and DOCSIS 4.0 upgrades.
- Residential Wi-Fi 7 Router shipments jumped 211% in 2025, driven by lower-cost, dual-band units shipping in China and Southeast Asia.
