Study: LTE to boom in coming years

A new study from ABI Research predicts there will be more than 32 million subscribers using Long Term Evolution networks by 2013, despite the fact that LTE networks are not expected to be commercial before 2010.
The firm noted major carriers China Mobile, Vodafone and Verizon Wireless have each announced plans to adopt LTE technology.
Asia-Pacific countries will account for the largest regional share of the LTE market, with about 12 million LTE subscribers in 2013, said ABI. The remaining subscribers will be split 60% – 40% between Western Europe and North America.
ABI said delays in 3G licensing in China could become a factor driving LTE in that country.
“It wouldn’t surprise me to see some operators skip over 3G and go straight to LTE,” said Nadine Manjaro, senior analyst at ABI. “Although China’s own TD-SCDMA 3G technology will be deployed on a small scale during the Olympics, I can’t see operators spending billions to implement that or any other 3G technology if they will just have to upgrade within a year or two.”