News / Networks
Enterprise WLAN and WiMax equipment grow in early 2006
Infonetics Research reported that worldwide revenue for wireless LAN equipment reached 639 million US dollars in the first quarter of 2006, up eight percent from the previous quarter.
Different wireless markets
The firm linked WLAN demand to campus deployments using business-class equipment for data and IP voice, and forecast annual sales of 3.8 billion dollars by 2009. Cisco led the vendor ranking cited in the report, followed by Symbol, Aruba, 3Com and Trapeze.
WiMax was presented separately: first-quarter equipment revenue was reported at 68.3 million dollars, up 48 percent, with providers driving subscriber growth. Infonetics expected mobile WiMax products in 2007 and described the technology as a potential complement to 3G, mesh networks and Wi-Fi. These were market measurements and forecasts from the period, not a single combined deployment story.
Keep the two equipment stories separate
The report places WLAN and WiMax figures beside one another, but they describe different deployment questions. Campus WLAN demand was linked to enterprise data and IP voice, while the WiMax discussion focused on provider adoption and subscriber growth. Combining the numbers into a single “wireless boom” would erase that distinction. The article is more useful when each measure stays attached to the setting and buyer that generated it.
Revenue does not describe the whole network
Equipment revenue can signal purchasing activity, but it does not by itself report coverage, user experience or the success of a particular deployment. The vendor ranking and regional shares are likewise snapshots from the cited research. They can orient a reader to the market discussion of early 2006, yet they do not establish a lasting hierarchy or the outcome of the forecasts. This is a limit of the cited measurement, not a criticism of wireless networking itself.
Why the complement language matters
The prediction that mobile WiMax could complement 3G, mesh and Wi-Fi is conditional language rather than a claim of replacement. It highlights a design question: technologies can be compared by the role they are intended to play, not only by a headline rate. That is an analytical interpretation of the report’s framing. The stored article supplies forecasts, not proof that the anticipated market relationship materialised.
Market reading
The figures are useful as a dated measurement of equipment spending. They do not turn either technology forecast into a verified deployment outcome. It does not reveal how individual enterprise or provider buyers translated equipment purchases into working services for users.