China, India, United States propelling base station deployments

The crush of mobile device usage is indeed a worldwide phenomenon with global handset adoption on track to surpass the six billion subscriber mark bolstered by continued growth in developing countries and more established countries seeing penetration levels blowing past 100%.
To support this tremendous growth, research firm In-Stat predicts the number of macro base stations will surge to more than six million by 2014. A solid portion of that growth is expected to come from China, India and the United States, countries with large populations, staggering geography coverage requirements and customers with a voracious appetite for mobile services.
“The amount of infrastructure spending in China, India, and the US is mind boggling,” said Chris Kissel, industry analyst at In-Stat, in a new report. “Over one-third of new base stations deployed from 2011 to 2014 will be in China, India or the United States, resulting in a substantial shift in the structure of the industry. Clearly, capex spending will move industry leadership from Western Europe to wireless’s new ‘Big 3,’ comprised of China, India and the United States.”
In-Stat noted that the Asia/Pacific region spent more than $22 billion per year between 2008 and 2010 on base station deployments; Canadian base station deployments increased 30% in 2009 and 22% in 2010; the Philippines has 1,500 base stations supporting the 802.16e WiMAX standard; France is set to deploy 7,000 LTE base stations in 2014; and Nigeria will deploy nearly 5,000 GSM/GPRS/EDGE base stations this year.