Cell phone infrastructure will grow
even faster than phones themselves
TEMPE, Ariz. -- Now here's an optimistic scenario for the cell phone business.
Forward Concepts expects worldwide cellular subscribers will grow at a 23% rate over the next five years-from 611 million
in 2000 to 1.7 billion subscribers in 2005.
Cellular handsets now have a six-month half-life, so replacement units now outnumber new subscriber counts by more
than two to one, points out Will Strauss, president of Forward Concepts.
And the infrastructure capacity demand will grow even faster the subscriber counts-fueled by competition among cellular
service providers and their aggressive subscriber rate plan, the market researcher says. It will shoot up at an estimated
45% compound annual rate due to increasing air time and greater bandwidth use by wireless subscribers, it says.
The worldwide capital investment in base station and mobile switching system electronic equipment will grow at a
compound annual rate of 16% over the next five years from $58 billion to $122 billion. Forward Concepts expects China to
become the biggest market for base station and switch investment by 2004-exceeding even that of North America.
"New 3G spectrum allocation will create new operators and infrastructures," says James E. Gunn, Forward Concepts
associate who made the forecast. And existing operators will transition from current 2G cellular to 2.5G then to 3G
technologies, he says, "which will bring exciting new services to the market."
DSP and other new chip technology by 2002 will support Software-Defined Radio (SDR) technology deployments in both
mobile terminal and infrastructure markets, Dunn says. SDR will enable worldwide roaming by a single user with a single
handset, for example.
Early 3G deployments will begin in Japan and perhaps Korea, China, and parts of Europe, Dunn says.
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