The Mobile Radio Access Network (RAN) LTE market has been steadily growing over the years, as smartphones and mobile internet have both become more ubiquitous among the general population. Indeed, not only are the devices themselves more popular, but more data is transferred over these networks every day as people get used to using mobile Internet for more and more tasks. In fact, the LTE RAN industry is doing so well that a forecast report from the Dell'Oro Group has postulated that the revenues for LTE RAN manufacturers could collectively reach nearly $22 billion by the year 2018.
The Dell'Oro Group's in-depth research and analysis has been trusted by manufacturers, investors and vendors for years. As such, their report, titled the Mobile Radio Access Network 5-Year Forecast is trusted to provide a complete and unbiased overview of the Mobile RAN industry, including macro and service provider small cells.
“The momentum around LTE coverage build-outs and subscriber adoption is stronger than anything we have experienced with previous mobile technologies,” claims Stefan Pongratz, the Analyst of RAN and Small Cell Programs at Dell'Oro Groups. “The pace of the LTE radio deployments during the coverage phase and the variety of band combinations available for LTE is enabling service providers to deploy radios in multiple bands optimized for coverage and capacity. This is driving investments to remain high even after the initial LTE coverage phase.”
The forecast report also predicts that the RAN market will decline between 2014 and 2018, at a single-digit compound annual growth rate (CAGR). Before this happens however, the market is expected to grow through 2014. Additionally, Macro investments are expected to stay strong through 2018, with more than a million macro radios shipping in 2018. Utilizing RRU, antenna integrated radio and active antenna systems, these macro radios will likely be configured with both distributed and centralized baseband architectures.
Edited by
Adam Brandt