Ovum, a market research company, has released its analysis of fourth-quarter revenue and capital spending by North American network operators.

Among the results, Ovum said cable operators saw their revenues increase by 13.6 percent, to $17.3 billion, compared with the previous fourth quarter, while holding their spending growth to just 8.6 percent, or $3.7 billion.

Ovum reported that fixed telecom revenues were largely flat among the top-tier providers, despite small gains by Bell Canada and AT&T. Wireline revenues were $43.8 billion in the fourth quarter, marking a 1.2 percent increase compared with the same time frame in 2006. Despite the tepid wireline growth, wireline capex increased by 12.4 percent, to $8.8 billion.

Mobile revenues were $38.6 billion, for a 9.8 percent increase year-over-year, while mobile’s capex dropped 11.4 percent, to $6.3 billion.

“The fourth-quarter jump in wireline capex provided a year-end boost to 2007 equipment shipments,” said John Lively, VP of network infrastructure at Ovum. “North American switching and routing sales grew 23 percent, and optical networking grew 31 percent in the fourth quarter compared [with] last year.

“AT&T drove the growth in wireline capex, and Comcast was the big spender among cable MSOs. Mobile capex was held back by Sprint, which spent 37 percent less than a year ago, despite a 73 percent increase versus [Q3 2007].”

More Broadband Direct:

• Comcast gears up for wideband deployment in S. Fla. 

• AT&T expanding worldwide presence 

• Ovum: Cable ops’ revenues increased in Q4 

• Secure Signals seeks ops for free beta test of GuardDog 

• Verizon hiccups fulfilling FiOS promo offer 

• AT&T’s VOD syncs up with movie review Web site 

• Rentrak signs up 10 new content provider customers 

• Yahoo buys time to fend off Microsoft 

• Broadband Briefs for 3/05/08