WCDMA To Drive Mobile Capex

(Business News & Technology News, 22 Sep 2006)

Though GSM is the dominant cellular technology, WCDMA will account for the lion's share of capital investment by mobile operators in 2012, said an ABI Research study.

Total capital expenditures by mobile operators will top $150 billion by 2012, ABI Research (Oyster Bay, N.Y.) said.

"Mobile operators' attitudes towards CAPEX have changed over the past two or three years," said mobile wireless research analyst Shailendra Pandey. "They are clearly becoming more focused on an early return on their investments."

The study expects operators to steer investment toward servers and platforms outside the range of traditional wireless equipment, and to focus on improving in-building coverage and rolling out advanced data services such as mobile TV and mobile broadband.

To achieve this, mobile operators need to invest in more leased capacity, upgrade to microwave technologies, and add fiber links to boost their networks' backhaul capacity. Operators also need to deploy advanced switching technology in the backhaul network, the study said.

"ABI Research expects that investment in technologies supporting HSDPA, mobile TV, and mobile broadband services will continue to expand in the coming years," said Pandey. "Also, by 2007, a good number of mobile operators will start rolling out IMS (IP multimedia subsystems), enabling them to rapidly deploy and launch enhanced revenue-generating multimedia services."

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