Dell’Oro: 802.11ac and Cloud Management Drive Enterprise WLAN Sales

Enterprise-class Wireless LAN market revenues are forecast to exceed $6.7 billion in 2018, over 70 percent greater than 2013 revenues, according to a newly released market forecast report by Dell’Oro Group.

Key trends include the continued growth of both 802.11ac access points and faster-than-market growth of cloud-managed Wireless LAN systems.  The overall WLAN market is expected to reach $12.2 billion during this time period.

“At this point, 802.11ac Enterprise-class access points represent a greater portion of the overall market than 802.11n did in the previous cycle,” said Chris DePuy, Vice President at Dell’Oro Group.  “The higher-speed 802.11ac devices are being priced at a lower premium to the slower 802.11n devices these intend to replace.  We expect next year, we will see new types of 802.11ac devices that support so-called ‘wave 2’ or ‘multi-user MIMO’ capabilities which will offer even faster throughput.”

The report contains a forecast of cloud-managed equipment and services.  Also included in the report are estimates on total SP WiFi units and revenue forecasts.

http://www.DellOro.com