Not surprisingly, the market for Wireless LANs has only been increasing over the last year. It shouldn’t really surprise any market analysts that as more and more people get themselves a tablet or laptop, they’ll be looking for more ways to access the Web. 

The Dell’ (News - Alert)Oro Group has underlined the growth of the market in its new report, which says the Wireless LAN market has been especially robust in the 3rd quarter of 2012, showing a 19-percent growth in revenue over the same period in 2011. 

While the report shows the market in general was stronger than last year, it was a group of providers in particular that saw a great quarter. Eight vendors, including Ruckus Wireless, had their best quarters in company history.

"Three trends are now driving faster-than-industry growth in the enterprise WLAN segment - devices that are cloud-managed, those optimized for use by Service Providers, and systems that leverage software to integrate wireless and wired infrastructures," explained Chris DePuy, Analyst of Wireless LAN research at Dell'Oro Group. "We see vendors focusing innovation dollars and marketing efforts to aggressively pursue these three areas."

Cisco (News - Alert) Systems continues to lead the market as a whole when it comes to the WLAN market for enterprises. Aruba Networks and Hewlett-Packard followed Cisco closely. In the Service Provider Wi-Fi market, Cisco again took the top spot. 

The ranking of Ruckus Wireless would be the one surprise, if there are any in this particular report. Thanks to its best quarter ever, the company came in second in the Service Provider Wi-Fi market, actually ranking ahead of Hewlett-Packard (News - Alert). 

Whether or not Ruckus, which definitely has to be considered the upstart in this particular top three, can stay in such close competition will be the big question in the foreseeable future.

Want to learn more about the impact and potential future of White Spaces? Then be sure to attend the Super Wi-Fi Summit, collocated with ITEXPO Miami 2013, Jan 29- Feb. 1 in Miami, Florida.  Stay in touch with everything happening at Super Wi-Fi Summit. Follow us on Twitter.