Worldwide sales of wireless radio equipment using microwave signals, or microwave equipment, topped $3.9 billion in 2007 and are forecast by Infonetics Research to grow 83% between 2008 and 2011.

Infonetics' newest report states that the fast growing microwave equipment market is being driven by the swelling mobile backhaul market, with mobile operators increasingly opting for Ethernet microwave to serve rising mobile broadband traffic demands. As most cell-sites currently are not fiber-fed (and won't be for years), microwave is an attractive backhaul solution because it does not incur recurring monthly charges like T1/E1 lines do.

"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 microwave equipment," said Richard Webb, Infonetics Research Directing Analyst for WiMAX, Microwave, and Mobile Devices.

Other highlights from the report:

Ericsson is the worldwide leader in microwave equipment revenue market share, while NEC leads in unit market share

As an increasing proportion of mobile traffic is data-orientated, mobile operators are migrating their backhaul away from legacy TDM-based systems to packet-based Ethernet solutions, which deliver more bandwidth per connection

Ethernet microwave equipment (hybrid and multi-mode solutions) accounted for close to half of all microwave equipment sales in 2007, growing to 83% by 2011

While backhaul/transport microwave equipment makes up the bulk of microwave equipment sales, microwave first-mile access equipment is a small but stable market, driven by several niche, often mission-critical applications, including emergency response/disaster recovery, back- up/redundancy and access in remote areas

Source:cellular-news