Microwave Transmission Equipment Market Drops in 2012

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Dell’Oro Group published a report today, March 11, 2013, which states that the point-to-point Microwave Transmission equipment market has globally declined in 2012. They saw a 12 percent decline which resulted in only $4.2 billion. Radio transceiver shipments declined by six percent to 1.5 million.

Jimmy Yu, vice president of Microwave Transmission research at Dell'Oro Group said "The market for microwave backhaul was truly impacted by surprisingly low demand in the European region. Although the market really took a step back this year, there were a couple of bright spots. The first was the growth in sales in the North American region as operators expanded their Long Term Evolution (LTE) networks. The second was the greater usage of ultra-high-capacity links using E-band frequencies to deliver a full gigabit of backhaul capacity to cell towers."

In a hierarchical telecommunications network, the backhaul portion of the network is what comprises the intermediate links between the core network, or backbone network and the small sub-networks at the edge of the entire hierarchical network. In both the technical and commercial definitions, backhaul generally refers to the side of the network that communicates with the global Internet.

The definition of E-band frequencies is that they are the frequencies that fall into the range 71-76 GHz, 81-86 GHz and 92-95 GHz. These frequencies are well suited for licensees to offer a broad range of innovative products and services, including high-speed, point-to-point wireless local area networks, and broadband Internet access. These frequencies offer a wireless communications solution to the products, which is a point-to-point, line of sight, wireless high-speed communications link established between two transceiver units, which are linked wirelessly through the alignment of their antennas and their transmission of data via radio signals in the 71-76 GHz, 81-86 and 92-95 GHz spectrum bands (also referred as E-Band frequencies). The transceiver units are designed to provide wireless link transmission of data at speeds equivalent to the transmission speeds obtained with fiber in all weather conditions at distances of up to one mile. The technology is wireless with high-speed data transferring across a point-to-point network and is more of an alternative to fiber optics.

The report shows that the North American region was the only region to achieve significant positive growth in 2012. It grew by about 13 percent. Alcatel-Lucent captured the majority of the North American market. It acquired a 44 percent market share.

Other key findings were that microwave sales in 2012 pulled back dramatically in the European region. Sales declined 28 percent, with Ericsson holding the highest share of the European market at 32 percent. Ultra-high-capacity radio transceiver shipments grew by almost 60 percent in 2012.