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New iGR Study Forecasts That U.S. Mobile Operators' Spending on LTE Infrastructure Will Total $138.8 Billion Over the Next Five Years [Emirates News Agency (WAM) (United Arab Emirates)](Emirates News Agency (WAM) (United Arab Emirates) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) LTE has now been deployed by nearly all mobile operators in the U.S., both large and small. While LTE networks are being expanded, both in terms of coverage and capacity, most already provide ubiquitous coverage in the top 100 markets. As a result, the U.S. is now the leading LTE market in the world, with each operator offering a wide range of smartphones, tablets, MiFi devices and assorted LTE accessories. iGR expects that the LTE market will continue to grow and eventually dominate the U.S. mobile landscape. In the next few years, mobile operators will increasingly refarm 2G spectrum to deploy LTE, as well as acquire additional spectrum resources. The demand for mobile data bandwidth will continue to rise and mobile operators are continually balancing their network spending between coverage and capacity. The engineers strive to provide sufficient coverage to be competitive and sufficient capacity to meet the needs of the growing subscriber base, while minimizing unnecessary network spending. Over the next few years, as the number of subscribers using LTE increases, so the corresponding network spending increases, both on network builds and operating costs, said Iain Gillott, president and founder of iGR, a market research consultancy focused on the wireless and mobile industry. iGR expects that the total LTE network spending of all U.S. mobile operators will total $138.8 billion over the next five years. iGR's new market study, U.S. LTE Network Infrastructure Spending Forecast, 2013-2018, forecasts the total LTE infrastructure investment per operator and network operating costs in the U.S., forecasts the spending split by network component, and gives an update on the LTE rollout for the major U.S. operators. (c) 2014 Emirates News Agency (WAM) Provided by SyndiGate Media Inc. (Syndigate.info). |