Skip to main content

Carrier Wi-Fi Market is Forecast to Reach $1.5 Billion

The global telecom service provider Wi-Fi equipment market totaled $713 million in 2015. The market has grown consistently year-over-year since 2007, due to the ongoing deployment of Wi-Fi as a wireless internet access offering for public hotspots.

Now, Wi-Fi growth in the telecom carrier realm is increasingly being driven by a diverse customer base and emerging technologies -- including Hotspot 2.0, 802.11ac and network functions virtualization (NFV), according to the latest worldwide market study by IHS.

By 2020, the worldwide carrier Wi-Fi market is forecast to reach $1.5 billion, and have a cumulative size of over $6.8 billion from 2016 to 2020 based on two market segments: standalone Wi-Fi access points predominantly deployed by fixed-line operators, cable multiple system operators (MSOs) and wireless internet service providers (ISPs). Plus, dual-mode Wi-Fi and cellular access points deployed by mobile operators.


Technology innovations continue to deliver positive impacts on the carrier Wi-Fi market, driving current and next-generation service opportunities. Hotspot 2.0 enables operators to fully integrate Wi-Fi with their existing broadband networks and supports service functions such as Wi-Fi roaming.

Wi-Fi 802.11ac standard, based on 5GHz wireless spectrum, offers higher capacities and has rapidly become the dominant standard for telecom service provider Wi-Fi deployments. It's also driving upgrade purchasing from the earlier 802.11n standard deployments.

And the evolution of NFV, which has already been introduced into the carrier Wi-Fi market by Ruckus Wireless and Cisco, offers the opportunity for more cost-effective Wi-Fi service delivery by a range of service providers as well as enterprises and other organizations.

Other highlights from the market study include:

  • Globally, carrier Wi-Fi equipment revenue totaled $367 million in the second half of 2015 (H2 2015), that's up by 6 percent over the first half of 2015 (H1 2015).
  • Mobile service providers accounted for the majority of revenue, with large tier-1 multiple network operators (MNOs) such as China Mobile driving volume.
  • 802.11ac access points comprised 61 percent of H2 2015 carrier Wi-Fi access point revenue.
  • For the full-year 2015, Asia Pacific led the carrier Wi-Fi market in terms of geographical breakdown, ahead of EMEA (Europe, the Middle East and Africa), North America and Latin America.
  • The top three vendors for carrier Wi-Fi equipment revenue share in 2015 were, in alphabetical order, Cisco, Huawei and Ruckus Wireless.

Popular posts from this blog

Industrial Cloud Computing Apps Gain Momentum

In the manufacturing industry, cloud computing can help leaders improve their production efficiency by providing them with real-time data about their operations. This has gained the attention of the C-suite. Total forecast Industrial Cloud platform revenue in manufacturing will surpass $300 billion by 2033 with a CAGR of 22.57 percent, driven by solution providers enhancing platform interoperability while expanding partner ecosystems for application development. ABI Research found the cloud computing manufacturing market will grow over the next decade due to the adoption of new architectural frameworks that enhance data extraction and interoperability for manufacturers looking to maximize utility from their data. Industrial Cloud Computing Market Development "Historically, manufacturers have built out their infrastructure to include expensive data housing in the form of on-premises servers. The large initial upfront cost of purchasing, setting up, and maintaining these servers is
Read more

AI Semiconductor Revenue will Reach $119.4B

The Chief Information Officer (CIO) and/or the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) will guide Generative AI initiatives within the large enterprise C-Suite. They may already have the technical expertise and experience to understand the capabilities and limitations of Gen AI. They also have the authority and budget to make the necessary investments in infrastructure and talent to support Gen AI initiatives. Enterprise AI infrastructure is proven to be expensive to build, operate and maintain. That's why public cloud service provider solutions are often used for new AI use cases. AI Semiconductor Market Development Semiconductors designed to execute Artificial Intelligence (AI) workloads will represent a $53.4 billion revenue opportunity for the global semiconductor industry in 2023, an increase of 20.9 percent from 2022, according to the latest worldwide market study by Gartner. "The developments in generative AI and the increasing use of a wide range AI-based applications in data c
Read more

Demand for Quantum Computing as a Service

The enterprise demand for quantum computing is still in its early stages, growing slowly. As the technology becomes more usable, we may see demand evolve beyond scientific applications. The global quantum computing market is forecast to grow from $1.1 billion in 2022 to $7.6 billion in 2027, according to the latest worldwide market study by International Data Corporation (IDC). That's a five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 48.1 percent. The forecast includes base Quantum Computing as a Service, as well as enabling and adjacent Quantum Computing as a Service. However, this updated forecast is considerably lower than IDC's previous quantum computing forecast, which was published in 2021, due to lower demand globally. Quantum Computing Market Development In the interim, customer spend for quantum computing has been negatively impacted by several factors, including: slower than expected advances in quantum hardware development, which have delayed potential return on inve
Read more