A new report by In-Stat finds that after many years of rapid growth, the worldwide cellular base station market revenue will decline 22% in 2009, mainly due to declining base station shipments.
However, intense competition from Chinese equipment manufacturers ZTE and Huawei have pressured base station selling prices, as operators demand that infrastructure manufacturers decrease costs.
In-Stat analyst Allen Nogee says that operators are so worried about not having the fastest wireless network that they will spend billions more on long-term evolution and Wimax, though not at the spending pace seen with 3G.
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