Two reports from Juniper Research and Wireless Intelligence give interesting forecasts on the long term evolution (LTE) landscape, but what does this mean for operators?
The LTE and 4G market is predicted to reach over $340bn worldwide by 2017, accounting for almost a third of overall operator revenue.
That’s the key finding from the latest Juniper Research report, “4G LTE: Subscribers, Devices, Infrastructure & Service Revenue 2013-2017”, examining how LTE will be crucial to mobile operators in the coming years.
Broken down into specifics, Juniper forecasts that nearly 70% of the LTE revenue will come from the North American and Far East markets.
Report author Nitan Bhas noted how operators will have to strategise for this eventuality. In a prepared statement, Bhas said: “Overall, they will have to present customers with innovative services that will meet users’ requirements and, crucially, that users will attach value to.
“Operators will have to review their tariff structures to balance the need to monetise the greatly increased data throughout, yet still over attractive packages.”
Elsewhere, telecom analyst Wireless Intelligence has stated in a research note that 4G-LTE technology accounts for less than 1% of total European mobile connections.
WI puts this down to the “current LTE frequency landscape in the region”, and predicts that conversely, by 2017 less than one in five mobile connections in Europe will have migrated to LTE.
“The lack of digital dividend spectrum allocation in the 800 Mhz band is hampering network coverage expansion as existing spectrum bands sued for LTE services do not allow operators to efficiently deploy the new technology outside of the main urban areas,” notes WI.
For consumers, the 4G debate trundles on. In the UK, where Everything Everywhere (EE) is the only supplier of LTE following a controversial bidding process, testing from RootMetrics has revealed that EE’s promises about the speed of the 4G connections were true.
As reported by Phones Review, the network was tested on the ground in Cardiff, Liverpool and Sheffield, where the speeds of 11.8Mbps, 9.4Mbps and 7.9Mbps were achieved. EE claimed that average speeds would be between 8 and 12Mbps.
In the US, regional carrier US Cellular has announced an expansion of its 4G LTE networks, promising that 87% of its users will have 4G access by the end of this year.
There’s evidence indeed that LTE is a big game for operators, but where will things go from here?
