Carrier WiFi market is red hot: Infonetics Research

BANGALORE, INDIA: Carrier WiFi equipment revenue, including carrier WiFi access points and WiFi hotspot controllers, jumped 53 per cent worldwide in 2012 from 2011, finds market research firm Infonetics Research.

While all world regions are experiencing robust demand for carrier WiFi, Asia Pacific-especially China, Indonesia and India-will be the strongest drivers of growth through 2017.

"The carrier WiFi space is red hot right now, driven by the explosion in demand from mobile operators using WiFi to augment their 3G/4G deployments and offload a portion of mobile data traffic to unlicensed spectrum," notes Richard Webb, directing analyst for microwave and carrier WiFi at Infonetics Research.

Perennial market leader Cisco again led carrier WiFi revenue share in 2012, followed by Ruckus Wireless and Ericsson; all three vendors achieved notable year-over-year growth. Dual mode cellular/WiFi access points began shipping in 2012 and are expected to undergo significant growth as more and more mobile operators build out carrier WiFi networks.

"Mobile operators by and large have held WiFi at arm's length, fearing that it could cannibalize their opportunity to derive data revenues," Webb continues. "Now operators are embracing WiFi to offload excess data and enhance the broadband experience for users. For the long-term success of carrier WiFi, though, integration with the mobile network is key."

Mobile operators are in the midst of a land-grab, rapidly claiming prime small cell locations by deploying carrier WiFi and then later replacing the WiFi access points with dual mode 3G/WiFi and LTE/WiFi small cells. The global carrier WiFi equipment market is forecast by Infonetics to top $3.9 billion by 2017, primarily driven by mobile operators deploying carrier WiFi for data offload