600% Memory Price Surge Threatens Telcos' Broadband Router, Set-Top Box Supply
2 62Telecom operators planning aggressive fiber and fixed wireless broadband rollouts in 2026 face a serious supply problem -- DRAM and NAND memory prices for consumer applications have surged more than 600% over the past year as higher-margin AI server segments absorb available capacity, according to Counterpoint Research.
Routers, gateways and set-top boxes have been hit hardest, far worse than smartphones; prices for "consumer memory" used in broadband equipment jumped nearly 7x over the last nine months, compared to 3x for mobile memory. Memory now makes up more than 20% of the bill of materials in low-to-mid-end routers, up from around 3% a year ago. Counterpoint expects prices to keep rising through at least June 2026. Telcos that were also looking to push AI-enabled customer premises equipment -- requiring even more compute and memory content -- face additional headwinds.
2 comments
Seems like... (Score: 5, Insightful)
by commodore73 ( 967172 ) on Saturday February 14, 2026 @12:05AM (#65988152)
It seems like "AI" causes more problems than it can ever solve.
ISPs have forgotten what their job is. (Score: 5, Insightful)
by Waffle Iron ( 339739 ) on Saturday February 14, 2026 @12:41AM (#65988178)
I don't see why a device that simply shuffles data between the internet and your house needs more than 100 MB. Let's be charitable and say 1GB (which was an absurd amount needed only to power high-end servers and workstations just a couple of decades ago). Looking on Digikey, you can still get the cheapest 1GB chip for $3, retail. This is worth about two days of a $50/month internet connection fee.
Luckily, I have an old ISP box that they doled out before all their equipment had to be a router, and I doubt that it has even 1GB inside. My own WiFi router runs OpenWrt just fine with 128MB. If ISPs would just stick to their core mission of delivering packets, this memory crisis wouldn't be a problem for them at all.