3/27/2006 -- WLAN revenues grew at a healthy 10 percent clip from 2004 to 2005, with Cisco Systems Inc. leading the way in the enterprise segment.

That’s the conclusion of a new study from market watcher Infonetics, which found that worldwide WLAN revenues actually dipped in Q4 of 2005 (slipping 5 percent to $591 million), but finished strong overall for the year, topping $2.4 billion.

That’s just the tip of the proverbial iceberg, of course. By 2009, Infonetics says, WLAN revenues will amount to $3.8 billion -- an increase of more than 58 percent. The focal point of this thrust will be the enterprise segment, which is projected to grow by 120 percent between now and 2009.

“The enterprise segment is where the action is,” said Infonetics analyst Richard Webb, in a statement. “Organizations of all sizes are increasingly mobile and data-reliant, so the need for network access while on the move is crucial, driving growth of WLAN switches and controllers in particular, which achieve double-digit annual revenue growth through 2009.”

That’s good news for Cisco, which is tops -- by a comfortable margin -- in the enterprise WLAN space, followed by 3Com. Elsewhere, Cisco led for WLAN switch and controller revenue in 2005, too -- leapfrogging erstwhile champ Symbol. Cisco is closely followed by Aruba and Trapeze in this segment. Cisco’s triumph came in the midst of -- and perhaps because of -- a surge in overall WLAN switch and controller unit shipments, which exploded by 154 percent (with revenue growing by 93 percent) between 2004 and 2005

Elsewhere, WLAN unit shipments increased by 39 percent between 2004 and 2005, eventually topping 25 million. Last year, access points accounted for 81 percent of WLAN equipment revenue, while WLAN switches and controllers accounted for 19 percent; by 2009, however, the latter category could account for nearly half (44 percent) of all WLAN equipment revenues. If Cisco’s triumph in the WLAN switch and controller segment is in fact the result of an uptick in demand, this is good news for the networking giant. -Stephen Swoyer