The U.S. market for small cell backhaul equipment will exceed $5 billion in 2019, “which aligns with operators’ deliberate approach to small cell deployments,” according to a forecast update from ABI Research. “These changes reflect real deployment scenarios and ABI Research believes 2015 will now witness meaningful small cell deployments,” the market research provider explains in a press release.
With an anticipated compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of over 100 percent, millimeter-wave technology will be the fastest growing category of small cell backhaul equipment due to its large bandwidth and NLOS (non-line-of-sight propagation), according to ABI. Sub-6 GHz technology will also outpace overall market growth to 2019, making up the largest share of small cell backhaul last-mile links.
“We believe that 4G/LTE small cell solutions will again drive most of the microwave, millimeter wave, and sub 6GHz backhaul growth in metropolitan, urban, and suburban areas and also backhaul for 4G/LTE small cells will grow at 2X the rate for 3G and surpass both 2G and 3G in 2016,” Nick Marshall, ABI research director, was quoted in a press release.
“While the North American and Asia-Pacific regions today are equivalent in market share we forecast that it is the Asia-Pacific region which will outperform the market with 2X to 3X the size of any other region, though North America and Europe will also outperform the market,” Marshall added.
In its latest update, ABI identifies leading vendors, a list that includes Alcatel-Lucent, NEC, Ericsson, DragonWave, Ceragon, Aviat, CCS, and Siklu, all of which “stand to benefit from this growth.”
