LTE users will reach 85 million by 2013 say latest report

A new report has shown that although Asia will be the first to benefit from Long Term Evolution (LTE) technology, by 2013 the number of subscribers to this 4G technology will have risen to 85 million.

In a recent media statement the wireless communication research analyst Cantab Wireless, who are based in the UK, noted that the new LTE technology due for release in the next two years will be the first “truly global” telecommunications system.

In a recent whitepaper that accompanied the LTE – The future of Mobile Telecommunication report the director of Cantab Wireless pointed out that at the moment LTE lack any kind of competition given the progress made by rival technologies.

A decision to halt any further development of it Ultra Mobile Broadband (UMB) was announced in November by Qualcomm, and Mobile WiMax “is, at best, comparable to HSPA (high speed packet access) systems”.

Korhonen said “In fact, HSPA+ networks will be offering the most credible competition to LTE, at least until the advanced WiMax, 802.16m, is available,” and add that competition against the cellular ecosystem that was already in place and establish was the biggest challenge facing mobile WiMax.

The concept that mobile WiMax was something that didn’t appeal to operators at the moment was something that Springboard’s research director for connectivity in the Asia-pacific region, Bryan Wang agreed with. In the next three to five years he estimated that less than 5 to 10 percent of subscribers in the Asia-pacific region will be made up of mobile WiMax users, according to a recent email interview.

The likely adoption of LTE by CDMA operators before UMTS (universal mobile telecommunications systems) operation was also pointed out by Korhonen.

He said “This is because CDMA operators have very few options left after the cancellation of the UMB project [by Qualcomm in November].”

The initial countries to launch LTE networks will be China, the United States and Japan, says the Cantab report with an estimate of two years before LTE will be made available.