LTE Drives Optical Wireless Backhaul, Globally

The demand for mobile data in the U.S. market alone will grow at a compounded annual growth rate of 56 percent in the next four years, according to iGR.

In fact, more mobile data will be used in the first five weeks of 2016 than was consumed in all of 2011.

The corresponding growth in mobile backhaul means a CAGR of nearly 58 percent between 2011 and 2016. In other words, about 9.6 times as much mobile backhaul will be needed in 2016 as in 2011.

Microwave backhaul traffic is expected to grow at a CAGR of 68 percent from 2011 to 2016. But fiber is king: mobile backhaul traffic over fiber experiences the strongest growth in backhaul traffic, rising at a CAGR of nearly 85 percent.

So iGR thinks optical fiber will represent about 70 percent of all backhaul by about 2016.