Carrier spending on licensed and unlicensed small cell equipment will continue to increase over the next five years, according to a new forecast published by Dell’Oro Group.
Some highlights of the 5-year forecast report:
- Service Providers to deploy almost 670 K small cell backhaul links between 2013 and 2018
- Licensed non-residential small cell BTS shipments to grow from 160 K in 2015 to 625 K in 2018
- SP WiFi revenues to more than double between 2013 and 2018.
“While there is no secret at this point that service providers would prefer to roll out macros as long as possible, we firmly believe as the focus continues to shift from outdoor coverage to improving performance in high-traffic areas and indoors, that the case for small cells will eventually not only make sense from a spatial efficiency perspective, but it will also be compelling from a business point of view,” said Stefan Pongratz, Director of Dell’Oro Group’s RAN and Small Cell Programs. “While we have lowered our expectations for SP WiFi, we have raised our licensed small cell expectations to account for new product announcements by Ericsson, NSN, and Huawei increasing the likelihood service providers will include small cells in their budgets,” continued Pongratz.
This report provides a five-year unit and revenue forecast for the following small cell segments: RAN (WCDMA/LTE), Backhaul (LOS/NLOS microwave and fiber/copper), and SP WiFi (enterprise-class devices and outdoor mesh nodes that ship to service providers).
