The Macro Antenna Market Outlook 2025 (with Earl Lum)

Earl Lum of EJL Wireless joins Leonard Lee of neXt Curve to talk about the reigniting of his research in mobile wireless macro antennas after a multi-year hiatus. He has just released the first phase of his research, the "Global Macro Antenna Analysis & Forecast 2024 to 2028" report soon to be followed by his market share report.

This episode is a great primer for those of you who are not radio and antenna folks but have a curiosity to strong interest in why antennas matter and why they are so important and indicative of the prospects of the market and pace of infrastructure modernization in the mobile wireless world. 

Earl & Leonard discuss the following topic about the mobile wireless antenna tech and industry trends that matter for 2025 and beyond:

• Earl gets back into antenna game! (1:23)
• Why does the antenna market matter? (4:03)
• Key trends and takes from Earl's antenna market analysis (5:05)
• Technical and deployment trends and challenges for 2025 and beyond (7:50)
• Leonard's impressions of Earl's summary and highlights of his report  (14:28)
• Key features of the Global Macro Antenna Analysis & Forecast report (15:32)

Connect with Earl Lum at www.ejlwireless.com. Hit both of us on LinkedIn and take part in our industry and tech insights. 

Please subscribe to our podcast which will be featured on the neXt Curve YouTube Channel. Check out the audio version on BuzzSprout - https://nextcurvepodcast.buzzsprout.com or find us on your favorite Podcast platform.  

Also, subscribe to the neXt Curve research portal at www.next-curve.com for the tech and industry insights that matter.

Chapters

• 1:23 Earl gets back into antenna game!
• 4:03 Why does the antenna market matter?
• 5:05 Key trends and takes from Earl's antenna market analysis
• 7:50 Technical and deployment trends and challenges for 2025 and beyond
• 14:28 Leonard's impressions of Earl's summary and highlights of his report
• 15:32 Key features of the Global Macro Antenna Analysis & Forecast report

Transcript

0:06

Next curve.

Leonard Lee: 0:09

Hi everyone. Welcome to next curves, rethink webcasts in our series from the radio to the break. And I'm Leonard Lee, executive analyst at next curve joined by my very good friend and renowned telco tech analyst, Earl Lum of EJL wireless. And, uh, yes, this is our first podcast of 2025. So I'm really excited. To kick things off with my buddy Earl, and in this episode, we're going to be talking about his newly published antenna report for 2025, and I assume beyond, and Earl's going to take a moment in a bit to just kind of go over it and, explain the why and the how and, Implications of, the analysis that he's done and incorporated into his report. But before we start, remember to like share and comment on this episode and subscribe to the Rethink podcast here on YouTube and on Buzzsprout. You can take us on the road and on your jog. And you can listen to us on your favorite podcast platform. And so with that, Hey, how's it going? We're all

1:21

going great.

Leonard Lee: 1:22

Leonard. Thanks for having me on. Yeah, of course. Happy new year and congratulations on completing what undoubtedly was a. Arduous task of putting together this report, which I think you haven't done in quite some time. Right? So, yes, that's true. There's been

1:41

a major gap and it took a lot of time to fill in the data for that gap and to finally get it done and looking forward to being back in the antenna game, so to speak, with the release of this report. As well as the companion report that hopefully will be due out in a few weeks, which will be the actual market share in terms of what's going on with the antenna market. This report that was just released is just on the forecast, covers both passive antennas for macro size as well as the massive MIMO antenna arrays that go into the AAUs. And, what's going to be demand for those types of arrays as we go forward? Certainly, as we look into extra large antennas and things that are going to be needed for the 6 to 8 gigahertz. Types of networks that some point in the late 2020s.

Leonard Lee: 2:35

So we're running up on MWC soon. It's just a month away. So this is very timely, right?

2:41

absolutely. I'm going to be talking to hopefully every antenna guy that will be there and getting an update on. What are some of the trends that have been going on in the industry? And ultimately, you know, is there any light at the end of the tunnel for the antenna market? It's been in somewhat of a downturn, because we've been, lowering CapEx everywhere, whether it's 5g or 4g, and we're now seeing a bit of a crossover where. Most of the operators now are focusing on macro radios and not necessarily on C band, massive MIMO. So they're upgrading from single to multi band radios. And when you do that, you need to touch the antenna and the antenna used to be the, the last thing anyone cared about when they were deploying a site, from a mobile operators perspective. And, and now is the first thing, or almost the first thing you think about, because Every operator has sold all of their towers to some company that is a tower company, and they're now paying rent on everything that is hanging off of that tower, whether it's the antenna, the radios, the cables, or any of the other boxes that are there. So the goal is to reduce the total number of boxes to the minimum, and part of that is also including the antennas.

Leonard Lee: 4:04

why is it important? What's a what's it a leading indicator of in terms of. demand and requirements

4:12

so the antenna is the actual physical device that converts the data from the mobile network into an RF signal and actually transmits that signal to your UE, whether it's a phone. A sensor or whatever it is. And it also is able to receive the signal that your UE is sending and to connect you back to the network. So if there were no antennas, you wouldn't be able to use the mobile network. It's pretty simple.

Leonard Lee: 4:39

That easy, huh? Okay.

4:41

On paper anyway. Yeah. So, you know, if essentially if an antenna broke on a particular sector. That sector would be down. You wouldn't be able to connect on your phone because there's nothing transmitting. And if you were transmitting on your phone, there's nothing listening to your phone or receiving that signal. So that sector is pretty much down and not generating revenue for that operator.

Leonard Lee: 5:03

Okay, and so what are some of the high level, trends and, takeaways that you surface through the research that you did, which you're willing to share with the audience? Obviously, you know, the report that you put together for your clients, but, in there, there's probably some conclusions that you can talk about. Sure,

5:26

I mean, I think the first obvious conclusion is that there is a downward trend for massive MIMO, because again, of most of the initial coverage phases of massive MIMO that have been deployed for 5G around the world. And because that's done, every operator now is looking at how do we reduce that rent profile on the tower that we're paying? That's OpEx that is in perpetuity. And one of the ways is to modify and upgrade the radios and do that modernization phase. I see A growing market in terms of the total antenna market, shifting back towards passives, passive antennas, that are, panels per sector instead of massive MIMO, because of all this modernization that's happening all over the world, with all the operators in going from single to multi-band radios.

Leonard Lee: 6:19

Oh, okay.

6:20

Anything else? I think that there is probably going to be some consolidation. in the updated report that I am currently working on that hasn't been published, at least in the U. S. market and in North America. and it will certainly impact the world. There's been a major sea change, in the competitive outlook and landscape with the acquisition of Comscope's OWN business by Amphenol and Amphenol previously acquired a company called Radio Frequency Systems or RFS that was owned by Nokia a few years ago. So they are, they have been a consolidator and now they are going to be the giant in the North American market. And then the question is, is how does that portfolio shake out? So there's a lot of change going on. There's a lot of companies that are domiciled in China. and that gets into potentially a geopolitical issue of. Can antennas spy on your data? No, they can't. But because of a made in China sticker, are you still wanting to buy that antenna even though logically you know that there is no impact or is there a government requirement? So that's also changing the landscape in terms of where do I manufacture these products? And if I was previously doing it in China because of the lower costs? Do I have to now have a backup plan in case the current geopolitical situation continues?

Leonard Lee: 7:48

So, Earl, if you were to integrate and consolidate these sites down to the smallest OPEX footprint and cost structure, what would that look like?

8:01

That's a great question, Leonard.

Leonard Lee: 8:04

Cool.

8:04

You have to understand that every region around the world and certain countries around the world in these specific regions have regulatory requirements as to what the industries would call a pole mount. How many pole mounts, can you have per sector? If you look at a country like France, it's one. So they are at the extreme of, you cannot have a second pole, metal pole to mount an antenna or anything else on, you're limited to one. before 5G was added to the network and you had 4G, you could have a very high port count antenna that supported all of the radios connected to it, and everything was fine. But now you add a massive MIMO antenna. Where does that antenna go? Because you only, you can't add another pole. So in that situation, we call those sites one plus zero, meaning that you have one pole and you don't have the other one available. So the massive MIMO then has to go on top of the passive antenna, the problem is that usually these passive antennas. Depending on where they're located are very long. They could have a length of up to 2. 6 meters and in such a situation, you're at pretty much the maximum of the height restriction from a regulatory perspective. So, if I have to put something on top of that, I have to chop that passive antenna down by 3 feet or whatever the size is of the massive MIMO and place it on top. And then I can mechanically bolt it together. if I could live with the lesser performance of that passive antenna, then everything's fine. But usually mobile operators don't ever want to give up performance. So one technology that has been developed over the last couple of years is called a transparent or see through or beam through passive antenna, where essentially you have your 2. 6 meters or whatever the length is. And you put a massive MIMO antenna behind it and you bolt it right up against that passive antenna. So it's hidden out of sight. It's still on one pole mount. You haven't had to add another one, but you know, those, that is your worst case situation in terms of, or your best case, if you want to integrate, you can actually get everything onto one pole mount by doing that type of an approach, but it is, it comes with risks. If you have to touch something and change something else out, now you're touching everything on that, antenna system with the passive and the active, because they're married together, as part of a system. And other sites around the world, usually we call those one plus one, you can have one pull mount for the passive antenna, whatever it needs to be, and one pull mount for your massive MIMO. And that can include both TDD and FDD. So the world is starting to go to FDD massive MIMO. That's certainly a trend that's increasing that started in the United States, and some of the other early countries adopting that technology. Now you can have that second pole mount where you have an FDD massive MIMO on the bottom and you can put a C band or whatever 64T TDD massive MIMO on top and you're not violating that one plus one configuration that the operators have. In the US market we, like everything, do everything big and in some sites I've seen up to five antennas per sector. so we have the luxury of doing crazy things in the U. S. and, some sites up in Canada as well, where you can do a significant number of antennas. And because of that, you don't have to integrate. And the non integration in the past has kept the price of these antennas and the complexity of the antennas low. Everyone is trying to save rent now, so everyone is consolidating and reducing those four or five antennas down to one or two. Here in the U S as well. And so there's a lot of modernization that's happening because of the OpEx issue that every operator faces around the world.

Leonard Lee: 12:01

Oh, I mean, okay. So when you say modernization, does that mean the integration and consolidation, different strategies for different markets that

12:11

every operator has to look at what is my risk of integrating too much? And what is the performance of integrating everything into one tena? Do I have to give something up as opposed to having two separate antennas, that are not integrated? There's a lot of, performance issues of the network itself in terms of how do I broadcast that signal? Right. Every service, whether it was two, three, four, or five G. Had his own antenna tilt. So you would move the antenna mechanically down to wherever it is that you want it to light up. because of the, the integration of the macro radios, some of the operators have given up on that requirement of having independent tilt because it just creates complexity in the antenna, makes it more expensive. And, that's something they're not willing to pay for. So they decided, you know what, it's a nice to have, but it's not a critical to have unless you're on the border of a country where you have a macro site that's bordering some other country and it can't spill over, then you might have to have that specialized antenna that tilts the beam down and stays within your borders. But those again are very special sites. And most of them don't need that. So there's a lot of different strategies around the world, depending on what region you're in and what frequency bands that you have and what services you're trying to transmit and receive to the subscribers there.

Leonard Lee: 13:37

Wow. Okay. So hopefully you'll give me a preview of your report because this sounds really, you know, seriously, it sounds really interesting. And. Quite complex

13:48

and it is a critical part, right? Because your phone and no, no one's phone on the world would work without an antenna. And it also. Has implications on the performance of the antenna for you getting dropped. So if your antenna is underperforming and you're at the edge of a cell, you could get dropped. If you had a better antenna that could get more signal strength out to the edge of that cell. Not only in transmitting, but also in receiving that signal, then that is a performance issue that an operator might want to switch out or switch over to because they're improving that call drop ratio across their network.

Leonard Lee: 14:27

Yeah, I mean, I'm really interested in, checking out the report and learning more about what you've shared with us simply because, you know, these are really. ground level considerations for overall telco modernization. Right? I mean, it all starts with infrastructure and everybody talks about transformation modernization, but that focuses largely on software because everyone thinks that software is eating the world. They've forgotten about hardware, even though now there's this renewed. Recognition that hardware is important, the network, what are some of the barriers and what are some of the challenges that you see that are, ground realities for these operators that get in the way of being able to drive the infrastructure modernization as quickly as people would like, or the industry would like to see it. That's what I think is really. Interesting about what you've shared thus far and why I'm really curious to read the report. why don't you go ahead and just share with our audience? What are the key features of the report? So that they have an idea of what you've covered and what you cover in the report. And hopefully up to this point, people who are listening, have an appreciation for the perspective that that report is going to provide.

15:51

Right, so this particular report will cover the forecast from last year all the way to 2028. It goes into detail of what happened in 2022 and 2023. And this is because again, it's a catch up report for me to get back into the game. but it does take into account both the passive and the massive MIMO trends that are happening. And I think, again, in any report that is published, whether it's from EGL wireless or whoever, the most critical thing now, as we look at the market is this whole bifurcation of, are you supplying into China? Are you not able to supply into China? So the report covers that extensively, because of the fact that if you can't supply into China, then that's not part of your TAM.

Leonard Lee: 16:36

Yeah, interesting. Is that a warning?

16:41

I don't think it's a warning. I think it's a, it's the reality. Yeah. And everyone should be aware of that by now. If you're not, I'm sorry.

Leonard Lee: 16:49

Yeah. So don't get your damn wrong is is the message, right? Okay. Exactly. Yeah. All right. Well, hey, thanks for sharing, all really appreciate it. And congratulations on getting the report completed and look forward to. maybe revisiting, this topic. Once you have your market share, the market share portion completed and published. So, yeah, Hey everyone. If you want to reach out to Earl, you can contact him at www dot. EJL wireless. com. And he's also on LinkedIn. you can contact him there, just DM, DM him and, ask him how you can get a hold of this report and also ask about his advisory services. you know, I think most of you who know Earl know that he's a leading analyst in this field. And for those of you who don't know. He is a leading analyst in this field. Did I get that right? Close enough. Okay. And, yeah, so please subscribe to the next curve YouTube channel. The easiest thing to do is to subscribe to the next curve research portal. And media center at www. next curve. com for the constant diet of, tech and industry insights that matter to you and your, company. So we'll see you next time. Thanks a lot. Thanks a lot, Larry.