Dell’Oro Group Says Data Center PON Equipment Revenues Projected to Rise 844% in 2026

Dell’Oro Group forecasts data center PON equipment revenues to rise 844% in 2026, with hyperscalers using point-to-multipoint technologies for out-of-band and infrastructure management networks that reduce cabling and power needs.

Market Overview

The report projects 2026 data center PON equipment revenues will increase 844% year-over-year, citing demand from hyperscalers for passive fiber distribution that reduces cabling and power requirements for out-of-band management networks.

Dell’Oro Group also characterizes PON deployment as moving from residential networks toward enterprise and data center use cases.

Key Findings

“PON technologies are increasingly moving from traditional residential networks to enterprise and data center applications, providing additional growth opportunities for PON equipment providers,” said Jeff Heynen, Vice President of Broadband Access and Home Networking market research at Dell’Oro Group.

Heynen added, “We see hyperscalers and enterprises, both large and small, increasingly deploying PON technologies for passive fiber distribution that is lower cost and that maintains its value far longer than traditional copper infrastructure.”

Enterprise and Data Center Deployment Notes

The report expects cumulative spending on data center PON equipment from 2026 to 2030 to exceed $3 billion, with hyperscalers, neocloud providers, and colocation providers deploying PON for out-of-band and infrastructure management networks.

It also states that enterprises are deploying Passive Optical LAN (POL) and that the report cites increased speeds and lower operational costs as factors when comparing benefits to fiber deployment costs.

Residential Operators Coverage

The report says Chinese operators continue to deploy tens of millions of master and subtended ONTs to deliver fiber-to-the-room (FTTR) services to residential broadband customers.

Analyst Outlook

The report includes five-year market forecasts for PON Optical Line Terminals (OLTs) and PON Optical Network Terminals (ONTs) and Optical Network Units (ONUs) across data center out-of-band and infrastructure management, enterprise and MDU passive optical LAN and FTTR-B, and fiber-to-the-room applications.

This Analyst Signals brief reflects a neutral, fact-based summary of the original research note.