Wireless products go up-market

With more revenue from fewer shipped wireless local area network infrastructure units, it is clear that higher-priced 802.11n products are moving ahead strongly.

According to Infonetics Research, the market – which includes independent and dependent access points and wireless LAN switches and controllers – hit an all-time high of $499 million last quarter, up 1% on the fourth quarter of 2007.

Richard Webb, directing analyst for wireless and mobile devices at Infonetics, said the products are leaving their mark on the overall wireless market, as vendors report accelerated shipments.

“It looks like enterprise WiFi products will migrate from 802.11g to 802.11n as rapidly as 802.11b products migrated to 802.11g several years ago,” Webb said. “Yes, enterprises would like to see a return on their 802.11g investments before making significant upgrades, but the speed benefits of 802.11n are undeniable, with adoption being driven by the increase in new notebooks and PDAs with embedded 802.11n.”

The report says that Cisco continues to dominate the worldwide WLAN equipment market, holding the top position in enterprise and service provider segments