Macro base station market to touch 7mn

SCOTTSDALE, USA: While LTE is driving the deployment of new and refurbished base stations, support of multiple airlinks and radio bands have become the central driver in the macro base station market.

The macro base station market. is projected to grow to nearly 7 million deployed base stations by 2014, says In-Stat.

This new era of flexibility and programmability in base stations is driving more complex software-based QAM as well as MIMO antenna arrays.

Also Read: Ericsson's 2 Millionth Radio Base Station

“Mobile operators have a set of baseline expectations for BTS manufacturers. Support for multi-mode airlinks (GSM/CDMA/WCDMA/HSPA/LTE) is now requisite,” says Chris Kissel, Industry Analyst. “Programmable support for multiple bands, 900-3600MHz, and other variations, is also a requirement. Multi-mode and multi-band standards will be ubiquitous and interchangeable in every base station moving forward.”

The study finds that WCDMA/HSPA/HSPA+ base stations remain the largest revenue segment through 2013. Moreover, the transition between 2G to 3G, HSPA, and LTE airlinks will also require reconditioning or redeploying existing base stations.

The study also finds that base station revenue for WCDMA/HSPA/HSPA+ technology in the Middle East and Africa (MEA) region will reach $3B by 2012. The average selling price for macro base stations will gradually decline.

In-Stat adds that downward pricing pressures in semiconductors will be offset by increasingly sophisticated software-based QAM, and increasingly more complicated MIMO antenna arrays.