We just published the 4Q19 update to the Microwave Transmission & Mobile Backhaul quarter report. Here are a few key findings for the quarter.
Microwave Transmission market declined in 2019 following a slight rebound the prior year. The decline in 2019 was due to a massive slowdown in India. We estimate sales to Indian operators declined over 50 percent in the year.
Huawei continued to hold the largest share of the Microwave Transmission market, garnering 29 percent share in 4Q19.
Vendor share was more fluid than usual in the quarter. Typically the top three vendors in this market consists of Ericsson, Huawei, and NEC. In 4Q19, Nokia overtook Ericsson for the first time and captured the second highest share.
E/V Band shipments outperformed in the quarter, helping to bring full year growth rates back up above 20 percent.
Among the microwave technology segments, we believe E/V Band systems have the greatest growth potential driven by its ultra-high capacity (10 Gbps), small footprint, and low spectrum license fees in certain countries. In addition to these advantages, demand for E-band systems in particular is projected to grow because of the availability of multi-band solutions that combine the benefits of both standard microwave frequencies with that of E-band.
The Dell'Oro Group Microwave Transmission & Mobile Backhaul Quarterly Report offers complete, in-depth coverage of the market with tables covering manufacturers' revenue, ports/radio transceivers shipped, and average selling prices by capacities (low, high and E/V Band). The report tracks point-to-point TDM, Packet and Hybrid Microwave as well as full indoor and full outdoor unit configurations. To purchase this report, please contact us at dgsales@delloro.com
Jimmy Yu joined Dell'Oro Group in 2001, and is responsible for the Optical Transport and Microwave Transmission & Mobile Backhaul Transport market research programs. Mr. Yu is a recognized authority in his areas of coverage and has written articles in various industry magazines. Mr. Yu is a frequent speaker at industry conferences and events, including OFC, OIDA, Photonics Society, and the Next Generation Optical Networking.
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The latest Dell'Oro Group CBRS RAN 5-year forecast report suggests delays have not changed the underlying demand for CBRS. The overall CBRS market – LTE plus 5G NR – is expected to grow at a rapid pace between 2019 and 2024 with cumulative RAN investments projected to surpass $1.5 Billion.
Even if the regulatory process has taken significantly longer than expected (> 4 years since initial NPRM), the high level vision has not changed. We continue to believe that there is an opportunity to improve spectrum utilization while at the same time stimulating innovation for both public and private networks. The CBRS band with its unique spectrum sharing characteristics include many of the right ingredients to be a game changer over the long term, making us extremely optimistic about the opportunities within the CBRS band. At the same time, we also believe it is important to be realistic about the potential upside with new opportunities—we still envision that CBRS deployments targeting new business models and use case will need some time to cross the chasm.
Other highlights from the CBRS 5-Year Forecast Report:
CBRS capex is not projected to have a significant impact on the WLAN capex.
CBRS investments are projected to account for a mid-single digit share of the overall North America RAN market.
Activity is anticipated to accelerate rapidly during the forecast period. 5G NR is expected to drive the lion share of the service provider CBRS capex in the outer part of the forecast period while LTE will likely dominate the technology mix for FWA, IoT, and Enterprise deployments through the forecast period
Dell'Oro Group's Advanced Research: Citizen Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) Report offers an overview of the CBRS LTE and 5G NR potential with a 5-year forecast for the CBRS RAN market by technology, location, and buyer along with an analysis about the vendor landscape. To purchase this report, please contact us by email at dgsales@delloro.com.
Stefan Pongratz joined Dell'Oro Group in 2010 and is responsible for the firm's Mobile RAN market and Telecom Capex research programs. While at the firm, Mr. Pongratz has expanded the RAN research and authored multiple Advanced Research Reports to ensure the program is evolving to address new RAN technologies and opportunities including small cells, 5G, Open RAN, Massive MIMO, mmWave, IoT, private wireless, and CBRS. He built the Telecom Capex coverage detailing revenues and investments of over 50 carriers worldwide.
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As I look to the future of the Wireless LAN (WLAN) market there are a few key trends that I'll be watching for 2020:
Wi-Fi 6 is racing ahead. We expect Wi-Fi 6 will rise significantly, particularly as vendors bring to market lower-priced 2×2 Wi-Fi 6 access points. Concurrently, we'll pay close attention to Wi-Fi 6 access points driving the Campus adoption of NBASE-T (Ethernet 2.5 Gbps and 5.0 Gbps).
Macroeconomic uncertainties impact near-term corporate spending. We expect 2020 to be a soft market for wireless LAN as short-term economic deterioration unfolds in many regions in the world. For example, in Europe Brexit is disrupting the general flow of business. Economists from the leading world banks have pulled down their GDP growth forecasts from 1.5% to 1.1% in 2020—a significant reduction. The good news is they predict a rebound in 2021. In the USA, according to the senior executives of wireless LAN manufacturers, large companies are delaying purchases as trade tensions create economic uncertainty. Economists forecast USA GDP growth to slow in 2020 to 1.8%, down from 2.3%.
More Wi-Fi 6 deployment in China. Although government incentives for 5G in large public venues has dampened wireless LAN sales in China, we learned that in 2020 Wi-Fi 6 will be big, particularly with the manufacturing vertical industry. We'll be watching for innovation and use cases of Wi-Fi 6 deployments within the manufacturing sector.
6 GHz turbo charging Wi-Fi 6. The availability of new unlicensed 6 GHz spectrum will increase the performance of Wi-Fi significantly. This will be the first time in over 20 years that additional mid-band spectrum has been made available to Wi-Fi, yet the use of Wi-Fi technology has increased on a massive scale. This is rocking the Wi-Fi market. The additional capacity would enable faster data throughput and lower latency—essentially turbo-charging Wi-Fi 6 and fortifying its competitiveness with cellular in the enterprise.
The next hurdle to making 6 GHz available is managing the spectrum. The incumbents currently using the spectrum are asking that all Wi-Fi devices connect to an Automated Frequency Control System, whereas the Wi-Fi manufacturers are asking for all indoor and very low power devices not be required to connect. We will be watching with keen interest what rules the FCC structures for managing the 6 GHz spectrum, which may be in the March / April time frame.
Tam Dell'Oro is the Founder and CEO of Dell'Oro Group, a research and consulting firm that specializes in business planning and strategic competitive analysis. Ms. Dell'Oro oversees all of Dell'Oro Group's research programs. Ms. Dell'Oro's research and analysis has been quoted in trade and business publications. She speaks at investor technology conferences, industry forums, and corporations around the world.
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5-Year Forecast: WLAN Market, In the Right Place at the Right Time
Huawei Global Analysts Summit 2021 Takeaways—CloudCampus Network
Every generation of mobile radio technology creates renewed demand for mobile backhaul, and 5G is expected to do the same. So, it is not surprising that the major 2020 trends in mobile backhaul all relate to 5G, what the latest mobile technology means for backhaul transport equipment, and importantly, what we will need "more" of.
Trend #1: More Fiber Backhaul. Undoubtedly, the mobile network will require more network capacity with the roll out of 5G. One of the many benefits of 5G is the option to use a larger amount of spectrum and bump up the capacity for users. This is the reason so many people start a conversation about 5G and immediately shift to talking about what new applications they can run if given more throughput and lower latency on their devices.
Trend #2: More Wireless Backhaul. As in past mobile network upgrades (3G and 4G), operators balanced the use of fiber backhaul with wireless backhaul because installing fiber everywhere was never conceivable. In continuation with this trend, we believe that the mantra of "fiber first" will continue, driving the growing use of fiber backhaul, but eventually cell sites will need to be upgraded where fiber will either take too long to deploy, cost too much, or is infeasible. Therefore with 5G, wireless backhaul systems, such as point-to-point microwave, will play an equally important role for operators to deliver on their targeted network coverage and capacity as fiber systems.
Trend #3: More Carriers. Microwave systems continue to evolve to meet each new generational challenge. We believe one technology that operators will increasingly use in the future, and for 5G backhaul in particular, is combining multiple carriers in one microwave backhaul link. The two options are multicarrier—combining carriers in the same frequency band—and multiband—combining disparate frequency bands such as E-band and 18 GHz. The advantage of both options is higher link capacity with little change in tower footprint (keeping tower lease costs from going up). The additional advantage of multiband is the availability of much higher throughput (over 10 Gbps) at an economical price-per-bit compared to standard microwave frequency links.
Trend #4: More Ethernet. The shift to Ethernet began with 4G and will conclude with 5G. Therefore, the need for TDM-based systems and hybrid systems will continue to decline in favor of Ethernet-based systems (carrier Ethernet switch, routers, packet microwave, etc.) this year and into the future.
Trend #5: More Fronthaul Transport. 5G will likely bring about greater instances where the mobile baseband unit is centrally housed further away from the mobile radio unit (and tower) to obtain greater efficiency. To achieve these longer spans, operators will increasingly use fronthaul transport systems such as DWDM. While this architecture of pooling resources has always been available to operators, we believe the entrance of eCPRI will increase the adoption of centralizing baseband units since it reduces fronthaul capacity requirements.