LTE market accelerating and likely to top $11 billion by 2014: report

By Narayan Bhat, TMCnet Contributor

The LTE (News - Alert) (Long Term Evolution) infrastructure market will reach $11.4 billion by 2014, fueled by macrocell eNodeB deployments, says market analyst firm Infonetics Research.

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

In Europe, Nordic telecom giant TeliaSonera launched the world's first commercial LTE network in Oslo and Stockholm in December 2009, driving the first major wave of LTE rollouts around the world.

In the latest report "LTE Infrastructure and Subscribers," the researcher has predicted that LTE subscribers could exceed 153 million by 2014, with most of them split between Asia Pacific and EMEA.

The second wave, according to Infonetics, will kick off in 2012-2013 when the Chinese operators start their rollouts along with the majority of Western European mobile operators.

'Despite NTT DoCoMo's shift in topology aimed at cutting LTE deployment costs by leveraging the existing W-CDMA footprint with remote radio head (RRH)-based expansion, there is no slowdown foreseen in the LTE market, only acceleration," says Stephane Teral (News - Alert), principal analyst for mobile and FMC infrastructure at Infonetics Research.

In addition to Verizon Wireless's aggressive LTE roadmap, Teral continues, more mobile operators have committed to LTE, including China Mobile and China Telecom (News - Alert), 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, Teral added.

The researcher has claimed that it tracked most of the LTE infrastructure providers including Alcatel-Lucent, Cisco, Datang Mobile, DT Mobile, Ericsson/Nortel, Fujitsu, GENBAND (News - Alert), Hitachi, Huawei, ip.access, Motorola, NEC, Nokia Siemens Networks, Potiveo, Samsung, TD Tech, Ubiquisys and ZTE.

The LTE report includes analysis from relevant service provider surveys conducted by Infonetics, a by-country LTE Service Provider and Vendor Matrix with expected LTE launch timeframes.

(source: http://next-generation-communications.tmcnet.com/topics/nextgen-voice/articles/82391-lte-market-accelerating-likely-top-11-billion-2014.htm)