WiMAX Drives Demand for Packet Microwave Equipment

The top-3 packet microwave vendors during the fourth quarter were Dragonwave (37%), Alcatel-Lucent (30%), and Bridgewave (9%), reports Dell'Oro Group.

"Dell'Oro Group has been the leader in quarterly reporting on the Mobility Infrastructure market since 2001," said Tam Dell'Oro, President of Dell'Oro Group. "Today we are pleased to expand our coverage to point-to-point microwave transmission equipment that enables service providers to backhaul the hefty load of network traffic driven by the rising usage of mobile data services," she added.

According to the new report, worldwide microwave transmission equipment revenues grew 9 percent in the fourth quarter 2009, with the packet microwave revenues growing 40 percent during the same period.

"Despite being the smallest segment of the market, packet microwave grew the fastest during 2009, as wireless service providers continued to gain comfort in a packet-only architecture," said Jimmy Yu, Director of Microwave Transmission research at Dell'Oro Group. "Although North America is the smallest overall market for microwave equipment, it was in fact, the largest region for packet microwave equipment deployments in the quarter. This is due to the demands placed by Clearwire's rapid deployment of 4G WiMAX service using microwave for cell site backhaul," Yu added.

Posted to the site on 10th March 2010