PON subscribership is about to skyrocket, according to an Infonetics report. The analyst firm is forecasting 1,260% growth in PON subscribers between 2004 and 2008, increasing from 1.7 million ports to more than 8 million.

“PON is growing rapidly in Asia Pacific, especially Japan, where over 2 million subscribers are already using BPON and EPON,” said Michael Howard, principal analyst of Infonetics Research, in a prepared statement. “In comparison, PON is just beginning to take off in North America, as Verizon gets into high gear, quickly passing the deployment rates of IOCs and local governments. Worldwide PON revenue will get an 84% jump start between 2004 and 2006, with a major chunk coming from NTT and Verizon.”

Not surprisingly, the two leading PON vendors are Asian – Hitachi is the current leader, followed by Mitsubishi, Infonetics said. Tellabs is the leader PON vendor in North America, while Alcatel leads in Central and Latin America and Motorola in EMEA.

BPON is the current technology leader, but that is about to change, according to the report. It will fall from 77% of sales in 2004 to 41% in 2005, while Ethernet PON takes a 54% share this year. Gigabit PON is also “gaining traction” and will ultimately win out over the earlier two forms, Howard said.