WCDMA services are penetrating markets more slowly than analysts had first anticipated, according to the latest assessment from ABI Research. The data-centric mobile communications platform looked set to enjoy rapid market success, but according to Lance Wilson, ABI Research's director of wireless research, "We have refined our appraisal of GSM/GPRS/EDGE versus WCDMA. The uptake of WCDMA is not likely to be as rapid as was once thought. It will show good growth, but there is still a lot of life left in GSM." "The rollout of WCDMA will continue," adds Wilson, "but service providers are also upgrading their GSM/GPRS/EDGE networks, so it will take a little longer for WCDMA to become the ubiquitous standard in the GSM family of technologies." Noting that "It's been difficult to gauge the uptake of WCDMA because there are so many factors affecting it," Wilson attributes the slower pace of adoption to issues of greater expense and of a lack of compelling applications. "The services being offered to the customer have not quite caught up with the technology," he says.
The industrial sector is on the eve of a wireless transformation, driven by an urgent demand for greater network capacity, reliability, and deterministic performance. Historically, manufacturers and mission-critical operations have relied on wired networks — favoring their predictability — because spectrum congestion in legacy 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands limited confidence in wireless for operational technology (OT) environments. However, with the introduction and rapid adoption of the 6GHz spectrum, compounded by significant advances in Wi-Fi standards, industrial facilities are now poised to embrace wireless LANs as the backbone for automation and digital innovation. Industrial WLAN Market Development Recent research from ABI Research forecasts that over 70 percent of industrial-grade wireless LAN access points (WLAN APs) shipped in 2030 will support the 6GHz band. This is a leap from 2 percent in 2023, highlighting a rapid and profound technological shift. The market for ruggedized indust...