In a recent LTE report, GSA (Global mobile Suppliers Association) has confirmed that 412 operators are investing in LTE technology in 125 countries across the globe. This year so far 11 commercial launches have taken place where as 98 operators commercially launched LTE service in the past 12 months.
Global LTE traffic will grow by over 200% in 2013, says ABI Research. Overall mobile data traffic had increased by 69% year-on-year in 2012. LTE has growth rate of 207% in 2013 compared to 99% for 3G traffic.
Ericsson has announced today that it maintained share of global installed base of radio base stations at 40%, and the claims top position in both mobile equipment market as well as LTE specifically. The company calculated share of installed radio base stations worldwide based on the accumulated shipments of base stations since 2004.
Indian broadband wireless access (BWA) winners can offer voice over LTE network now. According to a NDTV report, 4G operators can provide voice services along with high-speed Internet if they pay a fee of 16.58 billion rupees.
In a recent report GSA (Global mobile Suppliers Association) confirmed that 87 manufacturers have announced 666 LTE-enabled user devices, including frequency and carrier variants. Approximately 400 new LTE user devices were announced in 2012 and the number of manufacturers grew by 52% during the same period.
Research In Motion has changed its name and will now operate under the iconic name BlackBerry. Company also launched much awaited BlackBerry 10, the re-designed, re-engineered, and re-invented BlackBerry platform.
Apple has announced iOS 6.1, adding LTE capabilities to 36 additional iPhone carriers and 23 additional iPad carriers worldwide. OS 6.1 is available as a free software update today. iOS 6.1 is compatible with iPhone 5, iPhone 4S, iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, iPad (third and fourth generation), iPad mini, iPad 2 and iPod touch (fourth and fifth generation).
As the UK and Europe commits to 4G (LTE) technology, its successor LTE-A (LTE-Advanced) is already waiting in the wings to deliver the equivalent of a fixed-line broadband experience to the end user, promising peak data rates of around 3 Gbps.
LTE subscribers are projected to surpass the 100-million mark this year and will reach 198.1 million in 2013, up 115% from 92.3 million last year, according to an IHS iSuppli Wireless Communications Special Report.
ABI Research has forecasted that outdoor small cells will reach 500,000 units in 2013 in its latest report on outdoor small cells and carrier Wi-Fi Market Data. 1W and below small cell class will represent almost two-thirds of unit shipments in 2013, and continue to grow to overtake the higher power 5-10W microcell shipments during 2014.
GSA has confirmed that 145 operators have launched commercial services in 66 countries so far. GSA further reports that 104 new operators have committed to invest in LTE network deployments in 2012, raising the total number of committed operators to 330 in 104 countries.
ZTE has announced the world debut of the ZTE Grand S – 5.0 FHD LTE at 2013 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES). As the flagship handset in ZTE’s high-end Grand Series line of products, the ZTE Grand S is the company’s first FHD smartphone and is enabled by the Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro processor.