LTE market to top $11 billion in four years

BANGALORE, INDIA: The LTE infrastructure market is forecast to reach $11.4 billion by 2014, fueled by macrocell eNodeB deployments, says Infonetics Research.

Infonetics Research released its LTE Infrastructure and Subscribers market size and forecast report, which tracks E-UTRAN (Evolved Universal Terrestrial Radio Access Network) macrocells (a.k.a. enhanced NodeBs), evolved packet core (EPC) infrastructure, and Long Term Evolution subscribers.

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Stéphane Téral, principal analyst, mobile and FMC. Infonetics Research, said: “Despite NTT DoCoMo’s shift in topology aimed at cutting LTE deployment costs by leveraging the existingW-CDMA footprint with remote radio head (RRH)-based expansion, there is no slowdown foreseen in the LTE market, only acceleration."

"In addition to Verizon Wireless’s aggressive LTE roadmap, more mobile operators have committed to LTE, including China Mobile and China Telecom, with a massive TD-LTE rollout expected in China by 2012. There will be a dozen live LTE networks by the end of 2010, and the total number of committed LTE launches has grown to 64 so far, with more commitments expected," notes Téral.

To fully support the speeds it promises, LTE will be deployed in dense coverage configurations, with microcells, picocells, and possibly femtocells playing a significant role.

While TeliaSonera launched the world’s first commercial LTE network in Oslo and Stockholm in December 2009, giving the lead to EMEA, Asia Pacific and North America will drive the first major wave of LTE rollouts in 2010 through 2012.

The second wave will kick off in 2012-2013 when the Chinese operators start their roll-outs along with the majority of Western European mobile operators.

LTE subscribers could exceed 153 million by 2014, with most of them split between Asia Pacific and Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA).