Huge rise set for mobile broadband using Long-Term Evolution

According to the latest predictions from Juniper Research, an analyst company, revenues of more than $70 billion (49 billion) will be generated by 2014 with the adoption of the mobile broadband technology, Long Term Evolution (LTE).

With the trials of LTE in a number of areas well under way, and deployments of commercial WiMAX currently being rolled out, the next generation of mobile broadband data service are beginning to take shape.

Both consumers and businesses will benefit from the vast increases in speed that LTE will offer and a new connected era for mobile devices is anticipated by Juniper’s LTE Mobile Broadband Strategies report. The gap between the consumer electronics and mobile worlds in devices such as notebooks, games consoles, mobile phones and digital cameras is set to be bridged by this technology.

Before the market could take off, however, there were a number of issues that needed to be addressed warned the report. The author of the report, Howard Wilcox said “LTE will offer broadband speeds of up to 100Mbit/s or more. This is at least five times faster than the best mobile broadband now, and around 20 times faster than most people experience via fixed DSL. The challenge for mobile operators is to make profits yet keep prices attractive enough for subscribers to sign up. It’s all about the business case.”

A discussion into the need for mobile operators to change their business model if they are to have any chance of surviving the fast take-up of mobile data services during an Alcatel-Lucent hosted roundtable event recently also strengthened this warning.

According to Wilcox developed nations like China, the far east, the US and Western Europe, which overall will by 2014 account for 90 percent of the market, will be the main market for LTE.

The report said that the impact on LTE’s adoption by the current recession will only be a short-term one, although it should not adversely affect LTE’s prospects over the long term. The driving force behind mobile broadband will, in particular, be a combination of the continued development of mobile payments and comment along with the mobile web and a requirement to return to growth of the economy.