Telecom Lead Asia: 3G/4G self-organizing network (SON) software and 2G/3G optimization software sales will grow 16 percent this year.
In 2011, the growth was 11 percent.
Infonetics Research expects the SON and optimization software market to grow to $4.5 billion by 2016.
Moreover, the 4G SON segment is forecast by Infonetics to grow at nearly an 87 percent CAGR from 2011 to 2016.
Demand for self-organizing networks and optimization software continues because the need to remove people from the equation to reduce opex and human error has not abated.
“Sales of 3G and 4G SON software are on track to more than triple worldwide this year, thanks mainly to AT&T and KDDI carrying out large-scale SON deployments, while the much larger, older 2G/3G optimization segment continues to grow in the single-digits, driven by operators seeking to control opex,” said Stephane Teral, principal analyst for mobile infrastructure and carrier economics at Infonetics Research.
“The combination of the ongoing 2G-to-3G subscriber migration and the preparation of 3G-to-4G subscriber migration—specifically LTE rollouts driving SON tools—will fuel growth in the mobile network optimization market going forward. In North America, 3G networks are still being completed, LTE networks are being launched, and 2G networks will be shut down by 2021.
Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) are pushing the EDGE and HSPA+ roadmap hard while modernizing the footprint with multi-standard base stations. Asia Pacific is the home of the LTE front runners in Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, and South Korea, and of large 2G footprints in China and India. All of this activity will drive 3G/4G SON and 2G/3G optimization deployments.
