FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

MIAMI, Florida, and Barcelona, Spain, April 22, 2013 - The macrocell wireless backhaul market will begin to decline in 2017, but metrocell backhaul, expected to grow to US$4.7 billion in 2018, will more than compensate for the decline. The end result of the diverging trends is a healthy total wireless backhaul market of over US$10 billion projected for 2018, according to Maravedis-Rethink's new report "Wireless Backhaul From an Intermodal Perspective," part of the firm's Backhaul Research Service.

Another key finding from the research is that the growth in the wireless backhaul market will take place despite a context in which wireline solutions will dominate metrocell backhaul for up to 69% of deployments.  "The predominance of wireline metrocell backhaul will be driven by the need for converged fixed-mobile carriers to leverage costly investments in FTTx before spending money on dedicated metrocell wireless backhaul networks," said Esteban Monturus, author of the report.

The roles the different wireless technologies play within the metrocell backhaul market are projected to change considerably. "Millimeter wave and PmP microwave technologies, which served niche markets in the past, will reap 57% and 22% of the total wireless metrocell backhaul revenue in the 2013-2018 timeframe, while the NLOS backhaul market will be the smallest segment," said Monturus.

Maravedis-Rethink's converged RAN and backhaul strategy analysis focuses on the top 37 international mobile groups (accounting for 78% of the total cell sites deployed globally) to forecast the evolution of both the macrocell and metrocell backhaul markets. The granularity of the study provides insights in all continents. The study, for example, shows African operators will continue trusting PmP technology to backhaul as much as 49% of the metrocells deployed in 2018.

 Key highlights of the report:

• The PtP microwave backhaul market was US$4.58 billion in 2012, down almost 3% from 2011.
• In 2012, Huawei led the microwave market with nearly 20% of total market revenue.
• The PmP microwave market was the only segment to grow in 2012, experiencing a 7% year-over-year revenue increase.
• Most microwave vendors are facing challenges in supporting high-modulation levels such as 2K-QAM with their current hardware platforms.
• Split-mount and all-outdoor configurations are now supported by several vendors in the trunking segment. 
• Deeper research on the real performance of line-of-sight backhaul technologies in urban canyons with multiple obstructions is still needed.

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MARAVEDIS-RETHINK is a leading analyst firm focusing on wireless infrastructure technologies and markets.  www.maravedis-bwa.com . "Wireless Backhaul from an Intermodal Perspective" is part of the annual Backhaul Research Service.

For more information, contact:

Adlane Fellah,

Customer Engagement

Maravedis-Rethink

afellah@maravedis-bwa.com 

Tel: +1 (305) 865 1006