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The global economic downturn is effecting in-building wireless deployments in the North American and European, causing flat growth in those regions in 2009 and likely 2010, according to an industry report.

 

ABI Research (News - Alert) sees the stagnation as temporary and predicts typical 20 percent to 25 percent annual growth to return by 2013. The uptick will be, in part, a result of high growth rates in Asia-Pac and Middle East/Africa.

 

The study, “In-Building Wireless Systems” focuses mainly on DAS systems, but also explores how DAS can being used in conjunction with other IBW technologies such as repeaters, picocells and femtocells.

 

In-building wireless, or IBW, is expected to see revenue growth rate in excess of 21 percent over the same period.

 

“In Europe and North America there is a greater proportion of large building deployments –considering 500,000 sq. ft. and higher – and when those get postponed or scrapped, revenue is hit hard,” said ABI Senior Analyst Aditya Kaul.

 

In addition, North American and European operators have also seen their CAPEX being squeezed, which is not necessarily the case elsewhere. “Also in APAC and Middle East/Africa cheaper passive systems and repeaters are deployed to a greater extent,” said Kaul.

 

In terms of IBW, some vertical industries fare better than others, according to the study. For example, in North America particularly, the hospitality and financial sectors have been hit hard.

 

“IBW is intimately tied to the real estate market, especially new construction,” said Kaul. “As real estate for specific verticals slows there is bound to be some effect on IBW.”

 

At the same time, healthcare has not been affected due to the mature market that regular sees strong growth, and continues to see a high demand for in-building systems.

 

 “That can support not just cellular but also VoWLAN, telemetry, location-based applications and electronic medical records,” said Kaul. “University campuses are also seeing large IBW activity with some universities investing in their own systems.”

 

The study also includes a regional breakdown of the in-building market by verticals, analysis of key market trends, and profiles of equipment vendors, carriers and system integrators including market share.