Infonetics: Mobile backhaul spending to equal $44B over 5 years

Market research firm Infonetics Research is bullish about the prospects for the mobile backhaul equipment market, according to its latest report, Macrocell Mobile Backhaul Equipment and Service. The report ranks mobile backhaul equipment vendors, identifies market growth areas, and provides analysis of equipment, connections, cell sites, and service charges.

“Steady, albeit slow, growth is in store for the macrocell mobile backhaul equipment market,” notes Michael Howard, principal analyst and co-founder of Infonetics Research. “While Verizon Wireless and AT&T are winding down their first big wave of LTE deployments and their spending is slowing, this is a large market and there’s still room for growth. We’re expecting a cumulative $43.6 billion to be spent on macrocell mobile backhaul equipment over the 5 years from 2012 to 2016, as operators outside of North America buy up microwave gear to support rising capacity requirements.”

Well over half of all spending in the mobile backhaul market is on microwave equipment, says Richard Webb, directing analyst for microwave and mobile offload at Infonetics. And 94% of all macrocell mobile backhaul equipment spending is on IP/Ethernet gear, with 54% of this on packet-capable microwave.

Globally, Infonetics forecasts the macrocell mobile backhaul equipment market to grow to $9.7 billion by 2016. The company expects Ethernet mobile backhaul router revenue to peak in 2015, as the build out of macrocell mobile backhaul subsides and the focus shifts to small cells.

Infonetics’ biannual Macrocell Mobile Backhaul report provides worldwide and regional market share, market size, forecasts, analysis, and trends for mobile backhaul equipment, connections, installed cell sites, and service charges by technology. Companies tracked include Accedian, Actelis, Adtran, ADVA, Alcatel-Lucent, Aviat, BridgeWave, Canoga Perkins, Celtro, Ceragon, Ciena, Cisco, DragonWave, ECI, Ericsson, Huawei, IPITEK, Juniper, MRV, NEC, Nokia Siemens Networks, Overture/Hatteras, RAD, TelcoSystems/ANDA, Tellabs, ZTE, and others.

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