New uses of copper cabling are prolonging the life of technology in data centers, although fiber optic sales are growing faster, according to a market analysis from IHS.

The report shows revenue from data center cabling in North America is expected to grow by 4.5% in 2014 as fiber and new categories of copper are adopted.

The report Network Cabling – North America – 2014 analyzes the copper, fiber cable and connector products used in an IT capacity in data centers, LANs and industrial applications.

There are two main shifts in the product mix that are affecting revenue growth, said IHS Analyst Sarah McElroy.

“In both copper and fiber markets, growth of older cable types is slowing or declining as customers adopt newer technologies,” McElroy said.

“There is also a very gradual shift from copper products to fiber products. Essentially, the market is evolving in two ways.”

In both product sectors revenue growth has come as customers are investing in higher priced models.

In North American data centers the investment in copper is still more than twice the scale of investment in fiber cabling, but IHS forecasts fiber will grow faster than copper in 2014.

The fiber optic market is forecasted to grow at 6.2%, while copper is expected to grow at 3.8%.

While the price of fiber systems is expected to come down and these options become more competitive, manufacturers and standards boards for copper will continue to create new copper systems that provide better quality and speeds.

According to IHS, these advanced copper products will continue to provide stiff competition for fiber in the near term.

The report said data centers will continue to be the application with the largest penetration of fiber products.

Although IHS estimates that the LAN market for network cabling is about 1.4 times the size of the data center market, revenue from fiber products going into data centers still surpassed revenue from fiber products going into LAN applications.

“Of all the applications in which network cabling is used, data centers are certainly at the forefront of adopting the newest technologies and migrating to infrastructures that enable faster speeds,” said McElroy.