​ABI Research estimates that there will be nearly 1.37 billion 4G LTE subscribers globally by year-end 2015, up from nearly 650 million in 2014. The company further forecasts that the LTE subscriber base will exceed 3.5 billion by 2020, demonstrating a 5 year CAGR of 20.8%. 

In-line with exponential rise in LTE points-of-presence, company expects investment in LTE infrastructure to grow nearly 10% year-on-year.

In United States, Verizon Wireless is partnering with Ericsson to deploy small cells or micro-basestations to densify its network capabilities, with nearly US$500 million allocated for small cells deployment. Similarly, T-Mobile US is also partnering with Nokia Networks to explore small cell deployments that operate using LTE-Unlicensed technology. The companies will jointly establish a pre-standards LTE-U solution which uses Nokia Flexi Zone with Licensed Assisted Access (LAA) functionality to provide additional LTE capacity and better network performance. T-Mobile US will also conduct joint trials with Ericsson on LAA technology or LTE-U in the 5.x GHz band later this year.

LTE networks in China continue to expand at a furious pace, with a strong focus in TD-LTE rollouts to drive Asia-Pacific 4G penetration to increase by more than 2.5 times to 7.9%. ABI Research forecasts 4G penetration to further rise to 20.8% in 2015, up by more than 150% from the previous year.