Recently, Infonetics Research (News - Alert) unveiled a set of excerpts from its newest report, GPON Equipment in Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC) Market Share and Forecast. On many fronts, the information contained therein was eye-opening, though not every eye will be wide open as a result of this study.

The study tracked the growth of GPON--Gigabit Passive Optical Network--in both 2.5G and 10G equipment subclasses across the BRIC nations. Not surprisingly, China was the clear front-runner among their cohorts in BRIC, spending fully $715 million on GPON equipment in 2011. They also looked to be the front-runner for the foreseeable future, with fully 300 million Chinese citizens expected to become urban-dwellers over the course of the next 15 years. Even if it turns out to not be quite that large, China's sheer population bulk will demand significant upgrades in terms of fiber-to-the-home, or FTTH, deployments.

But China was not alone in the BRIC nations in terms of GPON,Brazil's fairly strong economy, as well as increased competition from cable operators and the one-two punch of the upcoming World Cup and Olympics presentations were likely to require a good slug of investment in GPON in their own right. The aggregate picture was even more telling, as in 2011, the four nations comprising BRIC represented approximately half of all GPON equipment spending on the planet. GPON spending in Russia was up 79 percent in 2011 over the previous year, and 10G GPON is expected to start generating revenue in the BRIC countries by 2013.

The BRIC nations have come under a lot of scrutiny lately as areas of major potential growth in the near future. Comprising both a large chunk of the world's geography and population--as well as two of the largest markets on earth in terms of population (China and India together, by some reports, account for just over one in three people on the planet, around 36 percent of the total global population)--it's not surprising to see that they would have a strong showing in terms of purchasing anything. After all, BRIC nations comprise three of the top five population centers on Earth, and all four are included in the top ten.

It's equally unsurprising that all of these populations want to get in on things like Internet connectivity and the like, so seeing an increase in fiber-to-the-home and similar GPON ventures can't help but make at least some measure of sense.

It remains to be seen if they will continue their expansion, or if there's more to GPON than population, but it's clear that the BRIC nations can't be counted out of any future considerations.

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