Worldwide revenue for carrier Wi-Fi access points and controllers will grow eight times from its current size to reach $2.2bn in 2017, according to ABI Research.
The report, "Carrier Wi-Fi and Mobile Offload," which examines the ecosystem and outlook for carrier Wi-Fi and mobile offload, reveals the market will reach a level equivalent to almost one-half of the traditional enterprise or SoHo Wi-Fi segments in the same period.
The report also looked at the technology and market drivers leading to carrier Wi-Fi adoption and profiled 23 companies in the market.
Carrier Wi-Fi is the Wi-Fi that is provided as a service to mobile carrier customers and owned and operated directly or indirectly by the carrier, like a third party hotspot provider.
While early market share rankings will fluctuate as traditional mobile infrastructure vendors add Wi-Fi to their portfolios, most of the market in 2011 was dominated by Cisco, Ruckus Wireless, and Ericsson/BelAir.
Nick Marshall, principal analyst, mobile networks, comments, "While carrier Wi-Fi is still in relative infancy today, the drive by mobile operators to offload data traffic is providing a significant boost to this segment of the market."
Carrier Wi-Fi rollout has been constrained until now due to the lack of standards which make the process seamless and transparent for subscribers.
"We believe that with standardization initiatives well under way, like Hotspot 2.0 and the almost universal inclusion of Wi-Fi in every smartphone, PC, and tablet being built today, carrier controlled Wi-Fi is expected to see wide-scale adoption, especially in markets like North America, Japan, and South Korea," continued Marshall.
The carrier Wi-Fi data traffic offloaded is expected to rise by around 30% by 2017, fueled by increased use of connection managers, which seek out validated Wi-Fi access in accordance with the service provider’s policies.
