Long Term Evolution could face competition

A new report from ABI Research predicts nearly 300,000 Long Term Evolution base stations will be deployed by 2014.
“LTE faces competition from other broadband wireless technologies and it will need to demonstrate clear technical and economic advantages to convince network operators,” says ABI Research analyst Ian Cox. “The mobile variant of WiMAX will start to appear in 2007 as the WiMAX Forum Certification program ramps up. The industry is also working on HSPA+, which could offer the same performance in a 5 MHz bandwidth. Without additional spectrum, operators could face a difficult choice.”
LTE is billed as the next upgrade for the GSM evolution path, succeeding W-CDMA and HSPA.