Mobile backhaul to “kick off in 2009”

Wireless carriers and backhaul transport providers spent $3.7 billion worldwide on mobile backhaul equipment last year, and spending is expected to grow in the high double-digit percents between 2009 and 2011, according to a report from Infonetics Research.
“All market indicators support continued growth of the mobile backhaul market,” said Michael Howard, principal analyst at Infonetics. “Manufacturers and service providers have had residential broadband and corporate services as the main thrust of their businesses for a long time, and now mobile backhaul makes up a third area that nearly all of them are focusing on. We expect to see the Ethernet mobile backhaul revolution really kick off in 2009.”
Three major factors are forcing the migration to packet backhaul, including rapidly increasing numbers of mobile subscribers, the explosion of mobile data and video use, and strong competition, said the report. Infonetics also predicts new cell site backhaul connections will roughly quadruple worldwide by 2011 and IP/Ethernet revenues will see a triplet-digit five-year compound annual growth rate from 2007 to 2011.