Small cell backhaul equipment market which is made up of the Milimeter Wave technology, Sub 6GHz technology and traditional microwave is expected to exceed US$4 billion by 2020, according to ABI Reseach. ABI Research projects that the North American, European, and Asia-Pacific regions will all outperform the total market with double-digit growth between 2015 and 2020.
The leading research firm believes that among these technologies, the Millimeter Wave technology with its large bandwidth will be the fastest growing segment, outpacing the overall market with a very high growth through 2020. Sub 6GHz technology will capture the largest share of small cell backhaul “last mile” links, also outperforming the total market by 2020 while the traditional microwave equipment is expected to remain the top technology for small cell backhaul applications with a leading share of revenue and one-fourth share of links in 2020. Leading vendors such as Alcatel-Lucent, NEC, Ericsson, DragonWave, Ceragon, Aviat, CCS, Siklu, and Fastback / Sub10 are among the vendors that stand to benefit from this growth, said ABI Research.
Nick Marshall, Research Director, ABI Research
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 with backhaul for 4G / LTE small cells growing at double-digit rates and surpassing 3G in this year.
