LTE tipped for rapid uptake

Stuart Corner
Wednesday, 08 June 2011 10:29

Business IT - Networking

The prospects for Telstra's LTE service, set for launch later this year, are looking rosy with market researchers reporting rapid uptake of LTE in markets were commercial services have been launched, and making bullish forecasts for market growth.

ABI Research says "In the first quarter of 2011, Verizon Wireless activated half a million LTE-enabled devices, while Japan's NTT DoCoMo scored 25,000 LTE subscriptions'¦These are solid gains for LTE, and point to strong demand for fast wireless data connections."

ABI Research analyst Fei Feng Seet, said: "We believe LTE adoption will take off more rapidly than expected, with more operators announcing network launches and existing players widening network coverage. And as mobile data speeds increase, the idea of replacing fixed lines with wireless connections becomes more popular among consumers." ABI is forecasting the US market to have 387 million mobile subscribers by 2016 of which it says: "close to 85 million are potentially LTE-enabled subscriptions."

Swedish telco Telia Sonera was the first operator to launch a commercial LTE service in late 2009.  However, according to market research firm Maravedis, the LTE networks operated by Verizon and MetroPCS in the US remain "the only truly commercial-scale networks worldwide."

Maravedis is forecasting the global LTE network infrastructure market to grow from $US1.5b in 2011 to $13b in 2016. It says that Ericsson - the supplier of Telstra's FD-LTE mobile network and NBNCo's fixed TD-LTE network - has a head start but faces stiff challenges from Huawei and Nokia Siemens Networks "thanks to their advanced base station architectures, increasingly sophisticated end-to-end solutions, and the impressive number of LTE contracts both companies have succeeded in accumulating."