According to Juniper Research, the total mobile backhaul operational costs are forecast to increase from $60 billion in 2011 to $257 billion by 2016.
As a result over the next five years, operators need to spend almost $840 billion in order to address the bottleneck in their backhaul network. This assumed cost includes the leasing charges, including the site and link leasing, installation and maintenance, spectrum and other capital costs.
The analyst predicts that in North America, where the majority of backhaul is currently via copper, fibre will be the preferred option. In Europe, due to the availability of spectrum, microwave will account for the majority of the market. And it expects that Africa and the Middle East will make use of VSAT satellite technology.
