Growth opportunity for WLAN chips substantial, In-Stat
In-Stat/MDR says that consumer electronics (CE) and Wi-Fi telephony will fuel wireless local area network (WLAN) integrated circuit growth over the next number of years. The research company also notes that WLAN chip growth will also benefit from the integration of WLAN and cellular networks. "In-Stat finds several key drivers for Wi-Fi/cellular integration: customers benefit from cheaper and higher-quality calls while on the WLAN infrastructure while still being able to place regular calls when away from Wi-Fi access, customers benefit from being able to consolidate multiple devices down to one handset, and cellular providers hope to use Wi-Fi cellular handsets to cement customer relationships and reduce churn in their subscriber bases," writes the company. Roughly half of the US$2.1 billion in revenue expected to be earned in 2008 from WLAN chips sold will come into the consumer electronics and IP telephony applications.