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Infonetics Research: Ericsson, Nokia Siemens, NEC lead fast growing microwave equipment market

Market research firm Infonetics Research released an update of its Microwave Equipment Market Outlook report last week after receiving new guidance from a number of vendors in this space, which significantly altered the market share landscape and overall market size. Highlights from the market share and forecast report follow.

ANALYST NOTE

"Mobile adoption and network traffic continues to grow, and content-rich applications are increasingly part of the traffic mix, in turn driving the need for more bandwidth-intensive mobile backhaul solutions. Since most cell-sites are not currently fiber-fed, microwave is a very viable backhaul solution, as it does not incur recurring monthly charges. Mobile operators cannot afford to cap investment in their backhaul networks or they run the risk of losing customers in what are already highly competitive markets. Mobile network usage is not expected to significantly slow during the current recession, so bandwidth demand for mobile backhaul will continue to rise, and, in turn, so will demand for microwave equipment, particularly Ethernet and dual Ethernet/TDM microwave equipment," said Richard Webb, Infonetics Research's Directing Analyst for WiMAX, Microwave, and Mobile Devices.

REPORT HIGHLIGHTS

--  The microwave equipment market is predominantly driven by mobile
    backhaul, which is growing rapidly; as a consequence, microwave equipment
    hit $5 billion in 2007 and is expected to grow at a healthy pace over the
    next few years
--  In the first half of 2008, Ericsson continued its lead in worldwide
    microwave equipment revenue market share, and Nokia Siemens Networks eked
    ahead of NEC for the #2 spot based on the strength of their Ethernet and
    dual Ethernet/TDM microwave equipment
--  The need for increased bandwidth per cell site is also driving a
    transition from TDM-based to packet-based microwave backhaul solutions,
    with most growth being in dual radios that combine native PDH/SDH and
    native Ethernet traffic without the operator needing to deploy two networks
--  In several years, it is likely that a growing proportion of mobile
    backhaul links will be Ethernet-only, with TDM traffic handled by
    pseudowires
--  Approximately 10% of the microwave backhaul/transport market is
    currently made up of transport applications for microwave, such as last
    mile and metro access applications
--  Microwave access is a small but active and stable segment of the
    microwave equipment market that is driven by several niche (often mission
    critical) applications such as emergency response, disaster recovery, back-
    up, redundancy, and access in remote areas
    

REPORT SYNOPSIS

Infonetics' microwave report tracks Adtran, Alcatel-Lucent, Cambridge Broadband, Ceragon, DragonWave, Ericsson, Harris-Stratex, Huawei, Motorola, NEC, Nokia-Siemens Networks, Nortel, ZTE and others.

The microwave report provides worldwide and regional market size, vendor market share, forecasts through 2011, vendor and service provider activity, technology roadmaps, market drivers, and analysis. The report tracks revenue, units, and average price-per-unit for access and backhaul/transport microwave equipment, including PDH/SDH microwave equipment and Ethernet and dual Ethernet/TDM microwave equipment (low capacity and high capacity).

DOWNLOAD OR BUY THIS REPORT

To download this report if your organization has purchased it, or to download sample data from the report, log on to Infonetics' portal from www.infonetics.com.

For sales, please contact Larry Howard, vice president, at larry@infonetics.com or +1 (408) 583-3335.

Infonetics Research is an international market research and consulting firm serving the communications industry since 1990. A leader in defining and tracking emerging and established technologies in all world regions, Infonetics helps clients plan, strategize, and compete more effectively.