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United States – The market requirement for enterprise-use wireless access points (WAPs) is projected to increase annually by nearly 5 percent through 2012, fueling shipment increases of PoE WAPs to more than 11 million units within the period, according to a newly released study from Venture Development Corp. (VDC).

VDC’s “Power over Ethernet: Global Market Opportunity Analysis, Third Edition” reveals that advances in their feature set and reliability as well as cost-effectiveness are driving the growth of WAPs and the infrastructure that run them, virtually making these integral parts of enterprise networks in every vertical market and installation environment. At the same time, a number of new markets are rapidly increasing the uptake of wireless networks, adds the report. These markets include factory floor, health care services and educational environments.

WAP makers are looking forward for the ratification of IEEE 802.3at, also known as PoE+, to allow them to support 802.11n access points. This specification will extend the IEEE PoE by using all four pairs of standard Ethernet Cat.5 cable to provide higher power. The -at standard is expected to enhance throughput performance and increase the amount of power available to powered devices such as WiMAX transmitters, PTZ cameras, videophones and thin clients.

According to VDC, these access points support higher data rates than existing 802.11a/b/g devices, and the additional processing power needed is one of the reasons that they require more than the 12.95W that is allotted by the existing 802.3af specification. While the 802.3at task force drafting the PoE+ standard has reduced the available power from 30W to 25.5W, VDC does not expect the demand for -11n WAPs and other high-powered devices to be affected. Existing -11n APs require less than 20W to operate, and several WAP vendors have already announced -11n APs that can operate under the -af standard, says VDC.

For the complete story, visit www.vdc-corp.com.