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Please contact:
Jeff Claudino
Director of Sales, Insider Research Services
619-229-9940
or via email at:
claudino@lightreading.com |
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| A TELECOMMUNICATIONS RESEARCH SERVICE |
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| A SILICON & SUBSYSTEM RESEARCH SERVICE |
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| REAL WORLD RESEARCH |
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| Mobile Backhaul: MSOs Gear Up for a Tower Play |
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At first blush, it seemed like an odd idea – even a mix of strange bedfellows. But U.S. cable operators are increasingly playing a vital role for mobile service providers by providing fiber connections to cell towers to handle cellular backhaul traffic. This year, several cable MSOs will double the number of cell towers that they connect with transport links, reaping a total of about $150 million in revenue for 2010. Cable operators currently serve about 6,000 cell towers, and that number will increase to more than 10,000 by the end of the year, according to the MSOs.
The cable industry is increasing its rollout of Ethernet services for business customers, so cellular backhaul fits within its business services aspirations. If played out correctly, cellular backhaul revenue can essentially help to subsidize the deployment of Ethernet services for enterprises. While a cable operator is in the process of signing companies in an office park, the nearby cell tower can be putting money into the operator's pocket.
While cable is stepping up to the plate as a backhaul provider, the biggest market driver lies with mobile carriers and their customers. Demand for cellular backhaul bandwidth has skyrocketed amid the dramatic increase in mobile traffic, primarily attributed to the increased data traffic from iPhones and other smartphones and the explosion of mobile Web activities around text messaging, Web browsing, gaming, video, audio, and hundreds of new applications. That traffic will continue to increase as more iPhone competitors enter the market and as service providers ramp up 3G, 4G, and LTE services.
To succeed, cable must meet mobile carriers' demands for pricing and stringent service-level agreements (SLAs). So far, most major MSOs seem up to the task, because they are clearly winning cell-site business in quick order. Cellular backhaul is also a proving ground for MSOs to meet the SLA requirements of enterprise business customers. Most of the major MSOs are seeking to migrate from serving SMBs to serving larger businesses. Smaller and midsize MSOs also are seeing growth in business services and – while they are expected to be slower to deploy more fiber and Ethernet – they too are likely to find good cell-tower opportunities in their regions.
But it remains to be seen how the competitive landscape will shake out. Who would have thought that mobile carriers would give their cell-tower business to cable in the first place? The telecom world remains an odd mix of competition and cooperation between players.
Mobile Backhaul: MSOs Gear Up for a Tower Play analyzes the mobile backhaul strategies of leading U.S. cable operators, in the context of both the overall mobile backhaul market and wider cable MSO efforts to build out their business services to compete more effectively with telcos. The report also profiles 15 suppliers of mobile backhaul technologies that are geared specifically to the cable MSO market.
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| Sample research data from the report is shown in the excerpts below: |
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 Table of Contents (cii0210_toc.pdf) |
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| When looked at in periodic segments, the growth of the U.S. cellular industry is extraordinary, as the following excerpt illustrates. While the number of subscribers, amount of penetration, and annualized revenues have all made gigantic leaps, so has the number of cell towers in the U.S., now about 250,000 strong and continuing to grow. |
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| [click on the image above for the full excerpt] |
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 Companies profiled in this report include: ADVA AG Optical Networking (Frankfurt: ADV); Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE: ALU); Arris Group Inc. (Nasdaq: ARRS); Aurora Networks Inc.; Axerra Networks Inc.; Ciena Corp. (Nasdaq: CIEN); Cisco Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: CSCO); DragonWave Inc. (Nasdaq: DRWI); Fujitsu Ltd. (Pink Sheets: FJTSY); Ipitek Group Inc.; Juniper Networks Inc. (NYSE: JNPR); Level 3 Communications Inc. (Nasdaq: LVLT); Motorola Inc. (NYSE: MOT); RAD Data Communications Ltd.; and Tellabs Inc. (Nasdaq: TLAB). |
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| Total pages: 18 |
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| MARCH 2010 |
 Cable Goes Wireless |
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| APRIL 2010 |
| Docsis 3.0 |
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| JUNE 2010 |
| 3DTV |
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| AUGUST 2010 |
| Interactive TV |
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| OCTOBER 2010 |
| Mobile Broadband |
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| * Calendar subject to change |
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