Cable access spending surges 40% as DAA and DOCSIS 4.0 upgrades resume
Dell'Oro Group reports a 40% surge in cable access network spending in Q1 2026, driven by distributed access architecture (DAA) and PON upgrades. This investment reflects a renewed focus from cable operators like Comcast and Charter on upgrading their networks to DOCSIS 4.0, impacting key suppliers such as Harmonic, Vistance Networks/Aurora Networks, and Vecima Networks.
Key Takeaways
- DAA-related infrastructure spending rose 40% year-over-year in Q1 2026 after hitting a cyclical low in 2025
- Harmonic remains the dominant supplier with a 48% market share, followed by Vistance/Aurora at 31% and Vecima at 14%
- Remote optical line terminal (OLT) revenues surged 71% year-over-year, driven by edge-out and rural PON deployments
- DOCSIS customer premises equipment shipments fell 5%, a decline attributed to ongoing subscriber losses and new regulatory router bans
- Residential Wi-Fi 7 router shipments increased 73% year-over-year, largely due to dual-band deployments in China and Southeast Asia
Why It Matters
The investment rebound signals that the long-awaited DOCSIS 4.0 transition has finally moved from lab certification to large-scale deployment. With Broadcom’s unified silicon now available, operators can retrofit existing nodes with RF trays that support either Full Duplex (FDX) or Extended Spectrum (ESD) paths. This flexibility allows cable giants to compete with fiber and fixed wireless access (FWA) providers without the cost of total overbuilds. For the broader ecosystem, the shift toward virtualized termination systems (vCMTS) and software-defined networking provides a more agile architecture for delivering symmetrical multi-gigabit services. Watch for Charter to potentially expand its 1.8GHz upgrade footprint beyond its current 35% target as competition for multi-gigabit subscribers intensifies.
Additional Context
The resurgence in infrastructure spending coincides with a critical technical milestone. Per Light Reading in May 2026, cable modems from six vendors, including Hitron and Sagemcom, achieved 'verified for interoperability' status from CableLabs. This validation ensures that the first wave of DOCSIS 4.0 hardware can successfully run on existing DOCSIS 3.1 networks—a requirement for operators seeking a phased migration rather than a high-risk 'flash-cut' rollout. These devices utilize chipsets from both Broadcom and MaxLinear, providing a dual-vendor ecosystem that was missing during earlier development cycles. Comcast has used this interoperability to rapidly scale its footprint. In March 2026, Comcast Chief Network Officer Elad Nafshi confirmed the operator had deployed approximately 300,000 Full Duplex amplifiers, bringing symmetrical multi-gigabit capacity to 'millions' of homes. According to Broadband TV News in June 2026, Comcast and CommScope have now activated these amplifiers across the operator’s entire footprint. This aggressive timing pressures rivals like Charter, which is currently executing its three-phase 'Network Evolution' plan. Charter completed high-split upgrades across 15% of its footprint by early 2026 but faces a longer timeline to achieve national DOCSIS 4.0 coverage. Global market dynamics are also shifting toward higher capacity standards beyond HFC. Per Dell’Oro Group in March 2026, while cable is upgrading its existing plant, the global broadband equipment market saw 50-Gig PON emerge in more than 150 pilot projects, primarily in China. This trend suggests that while DOCSIS 4.0 buys North American cable operators significant time, the parallel growth of 10-Gig and 50-Gig fiber deployments keeps the pressure on infrastructure providers to maintain steady capital investment through 2027.
Read full article at lightreading.com