CAMBRIDGE, Mass., July 12, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Spurred by soaring demand for broadband services, India's government and network operators are ramping up efforts to improve fiber-optic infrastructure and to drive fiber deployments out to more end users with fiber-to-the-x (FTTx) technologies, according to the latest report published by Heavy Reading Insider (www.heavyreading.com/insider), a subscription research service from Heavy Reading (www.heavyreading.com).

FTTx Market Starts Lighting Up in India examines the current and projected state of the Indian optical fiber network, including fiber projects now under way or planned by India's national and state governments, as well as the nation's top network operators. The report covers a range of passive optical network (PON) technologies, including GPON, GE-PON, P2P-PON and WDM-PON, and profiles five leading suppliers of FTTx technologies in the India market.

For a list of companies covered in this report, http://img.lightreading.com/lri/pdf/hri0712_companies.pdf

"The consumption of broadband services is growing exponentially, with the sheer unpredictability of demand making it difficult to determine the network capacity operators need to satisfy their customers with the best experience at the lowest cost," says Arvind Nagasayanam, research analyst with Heavy Reading Insider and author of the report. "India has very low broadband penetration, which provides a huge opportunity for the optical fiber networks to be deployed in FTTx configurations in the urban/semi-urban scenarios."

India's national government has set a target of 48 million broadband connections for a sample of 241 million households by 2012, says Nagasayanam. "In the last decade, Indian service providers have laid more than 1 million km of optical fiber across the country," he continues. "Optical fiber access will progressively penetrate deeper into the network and edge closer to the end user. However, fiber laying is a time-consuming process, so in the interim, multiple technologies such as xDSL, microwave and broadband wireless technologies such as LTE will continue to coexist in the first mile."

Key findings of FTTx Market Starts Lighting Up in India include the following:

• Ambitious broadband growth targets set by the Indian government requires fiber access.
• GPON is suitable for rural India and bandwidth would then be shared.
• The National Fiber Optic network project to wire each of the 600,000 villages with fiber termination will facilitate implementation of various e-governance initiatives such as e-health, e-banking and e-education, thereby facilitating inclusive growth.
• Challenges in deployment include right-of-way costs, access to buildings (residential and business) and subscriber acquisition.
• Applications over optical fiber network using open source code will use NOFN to connect rural areas with educational institutions, health service and central government services.
• Innovations from vendors active in the Indian market are highlighted.

FTTx Market Starts Lighting Up in India is available as part of an annual single-user subscription (12 monthly issues) to Heavy Reading Insider, priced at $1,995. Individual reports are available for $900 (single-user license).

To subscribe, or for more information, please visit: www.heavyreading.com/insider. For more information about other Heavy Reading Insider research services, please visit: www.heavyreading.com/research.

To request a free executive summary of the report, or for details on multi-user licensing options, please contact:

David Williams
Global Director of Sales, Research
Heavy Reading
858-829-8612
dave.williams@heavyreading.com

Press/analyst contact:
Jennifer Baker
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617-871-1910
jbaker@lightreading.com

About Heavy Reading (www.heavyreading.com)
Heavy Reading is an independent research organization offering deep analysis of emerging telecom trends to network operators, technology suppliers, and investors. Its product portfolio includes in-depth reports that address critical next-generation technology and service issues, market trackers that focus on the telecom industry's most critical technology sectors, exclusive worldwide surveys of network operator decision-makers that identify future purchasing and deployment plans, and a rich array of custom and consulting services that give clients the market intelligence needed to compete successfully in the global telecom industry. As a telecom research arm of the Light Reading Communications Network (www.lrcn.com), Heavy Reading contributes to the only integrated business information platform serving the global communications industry.

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SOURCE Heavy Reading