Mobile data is expected to grow up to 10 times in the next five year period. This means that operators need to densify the mobile networks and increase the capacity of the mobile networks. As a result, millions of base stations will be deployed closer to the end users.
To connect the millions of new base stations with the network, radiolinks providing wireless data transfer with high throughput are required.
With a densified network the installation costs will increase, which drives the demand for easy to install, high capacity radio links offered at a reasonable price. One solution for this is radio links operating at frequencies in the interval 30-300 GHz, so called millimetrewave links. These radio links are key components in the development of 5G and have an expected annual market growth of over 40% until year 2020.
Presently, the number of connected smart phones and tablets is increasing rapidly, which puts pressure on the mobile networks. Smartphones are to an increasing extent used for social networking and for uploading pictures and video content. In Ericsson Mobility Report from 2016 the amount of mobile data traffic is estimated to tenfold until 2021.
It is not only Ericsson that predicts an increase of this significance. Cisco estimates that the number of network connected devices will double from 2015 to 2020. In September 2016, Huawei announced that they estimate the average Internet user to consume 50 GB per month in 2025, an increase from 16 GB in 2013. Further, Huawei predicts that the mobile data traffic will more than sevenfold between 2013 and 2025. Hence, the data traffic that is growing at the fastest pace is data upload, which requires the so called backhaul network to be expanded.
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