Wireless network infrastructure market will remain flat in 2016, suggest SNS Research reports.
This is mainly owing to declining macrocell RAN and mobile core investments.
Over the next four years, the market is expected to decline at a CAGR of 1 percent, sliding to reach $61 billion by the end of 2020.
In 2015, global 2G, 3G and 4G wireless infrastructure revenues stood at nearly $65 billion.
The market is currently in a phase of transition with mobile operators addressing increasing mobile traffic demands amidst global economic uncertainties.
This will lead to new challenges and opportunities to infrastructure vendors.
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Even with the ongoing decline in the wider market, mobile operators will increase their investment in the evolving HetNet (Heterogeneous Network) submarket.
HetNet includes small cells, carrier Wi-Fi, DAS (Distributed Antenna Systems) and C-RAN (Centralized RAN) infrastructure.
Small cell and carrier Wi-Fi equipment amount to a market worth of $3 Billion in 2016.
When DAS and C-RAN investments will be added, the HetNet sector can benefit from both established and startup vendors focusing on this submarket.
By 2020, small cells, C-RAN, DAS and carrier Wi-Fi infrastructure, together with their fronthaul and backhaul segments, will account for over 50 percent of all wireless network infrastructure spending.
Meanwhile, critical communications LTE network market values at over $600 million in annual infrastructure spending, suggest the LTE Market for Critical Communications Industry 2016 – 2030 report.
With large-scale rollouts in the public safety, energy and other sectors, the market is further expected to surpass $2 Billion by the end of 2020. This includes spending on base stations (eNBs), mobile core and transport networking gear.
The current critical communications industry is supported by narrowband LMR (Land Mobile Radio) networks for mission-critical voice and basic data services.
The challenge is the bandwidth limitation associated with the LMR networks.
This has led to public safety agencies and other users within the critical communications industry opting for commercial cellular network technologies to support growing demands for mobile broadband services such as video transmission and bandwidth-intensive field applications.
Hence, LTE is growing to become the leading choice for critical communications broadband networks.
The recent approval of the MCPTT (Mission Critical Push to Talk) voice standard as part of 3GPP Release 13, contributed to make LTE a substitute for providing LMR-like voice services.
Hence, critical communications organizations are deploying either private LTE networks or contracting commercial LTE mobile operator services via MVNO arrangements to complement their existing LMR systems with broadband capabilities.
The public safety LTE market in the US is expected to grow at a CAGR exceeding 19 percent during the 2016-2020, as per recent market study released by Technavio.
Also, the report adds that global expenditure on LTE infrastructure, including eNB, mobile core, and backhaul, will reach $2 billion annually by the end of 2020.
The private LTE market is expected to surpass $800 million in global investments by the end of 2016, by increasingly becoming the preferred approach to deliver mobile broadband services in the critical communications industry.
Vina Krishnan
[email protected]
