"Backhaul capabilities will be enhanced greatly during the next years, a pattern that has already began," said author Andy Fuertes of the new report "Global Backhaul: The Bandwidth Explosion in Wireless Networks."
"For example," Fuertes said, "over three quarters of all deployed base stations globally employ 6 Mbps or less of backhaul capacity today, well within the capabilities of traditional E1/T1 technology. But that will be a thing of the past as the majority of base stations deployed in leading mobile markets will have much higher backhaul capacity, increasing by a factor of from two to five through the years"
"The greatest challenges for operators may be evident just outside of the urban fiber rings within leading wireless economies. Sites in these areas typically lack access to fiber but their capacity requirements will increase substantially," Fuertes added.
"Another critical factor is the rising rate of collocation of base stations in tandem with the rise in capacity per base station," said Larry Swasey of Visant Strategies. "As collocation becomes more of a must each year during the study period, towers requiring 45 Mbps or more of total capacity will almost double each year during the same period."
The report details base station deployments, wireless sites, backhaul lines by capacity and access technology, sites by capacity, backhaul costs, and deployment of IP-centric base stations by region through 2012. It also examines air-interface use, network traffic developments and subscriber usage patterns creating the need for the increased backhaul capacity. For more information go to www.visantstrategies.com.
