Eighty-Four Percent of Mobile Operators Moving from HSPA in Anticipation of Evolution to LTE

By Jayashree Adkoli, TMCnet Contributor

Many wireless operators are planning to deploy LTE (News - Alert)because it offers higher bandwidth and higher capacity services. There are several evolution paths to LTE. LTE can evolve directly from GPRS, UMTS or EV-DO. Many mobile operators worldwide have plans of moving from HSPA to HSPA+ to LTE. This path accounts for 85 percent of the global Mobile Telecom market, according to the GSM Association.

According to the latest Maravedis (News - Alert)research report entitled 'The Top 25 LTE Operator Commitments: Deployment Scenarios and Growth Opportunities,' there were 4.7 billion mobile subscribers worldwide at the end of 2009. The top 25 LTE operators accounted for nearly 22 percent of the total worldwide mobile subscriber base; with 1 billion mobile subscribers, of which 280 million were 3G/UMTS.

It is anticipated that the top 25 LTE operators will reach a 3G/UMTS subscriber base of 1,087 million by the year 2015. Of the 1,087 million, 226.7 million of 3G/UMTS subscriber base will be served with dual mode 3G/LTE devices and the LTE infrastructure CAPEX spending might reach $14 billion in 2015, says the report.

The report also says that 21 out of 25 operators, or 84 percent, are moving from HSPA to HSPA+ evolution path to LTE. The remaining percentage of operators will be following EVDO to CDMA One/CDMA 2000 path. Only 4 operators of the 25 operators will be following the CDMA path to evolve to LTE. These companies include Verizon (News - Alert)Wireless (USA), China Mobile, NTT DoCoMo (Japan), and KDDI representing the remaining 16 percent.

The total LTE CAPEX will be approximately $47.83 billion, of which 78 percent will be on base stations and 22 percent on dual-mode CPEs. The accumulated number of LTE base stations will reach 241,698 units in 2015, up from 82,511 units in 2013, says the report.

It is anticipated that 242,000 accumulated LTE macro base stations will be deployed in 2015, up from 38,906 in 2013; Chinese and European carriers will drive the market after 2012; over 80 percent of the top 25 LTE operators have selected vendors for their LTE trials; 52 percent of the LTE committed operators are planning to deploy eNodeB microcells and picocells; and 57 percent of operators use just fiber backhaul, in which 12 percent use microwave and 31 percent use a mix of both.

According to the report, Ericsson, Huawei (News - Alert), and Alcatel-Lucent are the top three, best positioned vendors for LTE trials and deployment contracts.

Robert Syputa, senior analyst and report advisor, said, 'Many operators will deploy LTE as a data network overlay with fall back to 3G network coverage where LTE is not available. So far, only 40 percent of the operators interviewed are planning and doing trials for voice over LTE. We expect this figure to increase as operators near LTE rollout.'

Esteban Monturus, senior analyst for Europe, said, 'Nearly 84 percent of mobile operators around the world will be moving from HSPA/HSPA+ in anticipation of their evolution to LTE, while only 16 percent of operators will move from CDMA/EVDO.'

Basharat Ashai, co-author of the report, said, 'In the foreseeable future, LTE will primarily be deployed into unused or newly acquired spectrum bands, including 700 MHz, 2.3 GHz and 2.5-2.7 GHz BWA spectrum bands.'

Jayashree Adkoli is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To read more of Jayashree's articles, please visit her columnist page.

Edited by Patrick Barnard

(source: http://4g-wirelessevolution.tmcnet.com/topics/4g-wirelessevolution/articles/85885-eighty-four-percent-mobile-operators-moving-from-hspa.htm)