Market licks lips for enterprise wireless LAN boom

Market watcher predicts 70 per cent growth over next five years

The growth of cloud-managed systems and 802.11ac access points is poised to spark a surge in enterprise wireless LAN spending over the next five years.

That's the verdict of market watcher Dell'Oro, which forecasts that enterprise-class wireless LAN market revenue will reach $6.7bn(£3.9bn) by 2018, a 70 per cent hike on 2013.

Cloud-managed wireless LAN systems will grow faster than the overall market during the period, Dell'Oro said, with the uptake of 802.11ac access points also set to contribute to the growth.

"At this point, 802.11ac Enterprise-class access points represent a greater portion of the overall market than 802.11n did in the previous cycle," said Chris DePuy, vice president at Dell'Oro Group.

"The higher-speed 802.11ac devices are being priced at a lower premium to the slower 802.11n devices these intend to replace. We expect next year, we will see new types of 802.11ac devices that support so-called ‘wave 2' or ‘multi-user MIMO' capabilities which will offer even faster throughput."

By 2018, the enterprise segment will account for more than half an overall WLAN market worth $12.2bn, Dell'Oro added.