Of them, 42% will be backhauled by fibre (see pie chart), down from 53% last year, with microwave at 7-40GHz connecting another 31%.
There were 1.4 million small cells in service last year, says the report from Rethink Research, but there will be more than 12 million in 2026.
“The rapid expansion in spectrum and support for much greater diversity in use cases will strain backhaul capacity and demand extra layers of complexity to deliver on performance and flexibility,” says the report, by lead analyst Philip Hunter.
“This will drive growth in capacity of backhaul links and changes in architecture as radio functions are separated from baseband signal processing to enable both to scale independently and be supplied by different vendors.”
The drive for higher bit rates and capacity will accelerate growth of small cells that cut the distance between radio units and users, notes the report. “That will be the main driver of backhaul links over the next six years.”
Rethink Research notes that “the small cell boom will also increase use of microwave for backhaul because, although fibre provides more capacity and lower latency, it will not always be available or affordable at the cell sites”.
As a result, fibre’s share of the small-cell backhaul market – though a much bigger market – will drop from 53% to 42%.
Microwave-based backhaul will grow by up to 47%, says the report.
But fibre will grow its share of the market for macro cells, connecting 56.9% by 2026, an increase from 41.7% in 2019. The number of macro cells will grow “at a relatively sedate pace” from 7.44 million in 2019 to 9.53 million by 2026.
