Wireless LAN market grew 10 percent in third quarter 2013

REDWOOD CITY, USA: A recently published report by Dell'Oro Group revealed the Wireless LAN (WLAN) market grew 10 percent in the third quarter 2013 versus the year ago period. Relative newcomer, Ubiquiti Networks, joined Cisco Systems and Ruckus Wireless in gaining the most dollar share compared to the prior quarter in the combined Enterprise and Outdoor segment.

Chris DePuy, VP of Wireless LAN research at Dell'Oro Group, said: "A significant driver to the third quarter results was the fact that it was the first full quarter of 802.11ac shipments for enterprise-class devices. At six percent of Enterprise Access Point market units, this new technology now represents an important part of the future growth of the WLAN market.

"What is interesting about 802.11ac equipment that shipped last quarter was that it was all based on 'Wave 1' radios. We expect even greater interest to develop for 802.11ac once 'Wave 2' radios emerge in the next year or two."

Wave 1 802.11ac radio technology is the current technology available in the market place today. Wave 2 radio systems will include various new features, most notably Multi-user MIMO, which is likely to increase data throughput beyond that of Wave 1 radios.

In the third quarter, the top three vendors in the combined Enterprise-Class and Outdoor Mesh Nodes category were Cisco Systems, Hewlett Packard and Ruckus Wireless.