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What are the LTE take-up rates, globally? Most countries around the world are going through the early phase of LTE deployment, offering LTE coverage in selected cities and urban areas before expanding to other places. Some countries have a slower take-up rate and are concentrating on strenghtening their 3G coverage and expect 4G LTE to be a longer term strategy. Juniper Research, a research company covering the hi-tech communications sector, published the 4G LTE: Subscribers, Smartphones, Base Stations & Service Revenue 2014-2019, in which it estimates 4G LTE to grow to 1 billion connections in 2017 and 1.8 billion by 2019. It expects these figures to make up 22% of global active mobile SIM connections by that time.
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According to Juniper, solution providers in the 4G LTE segment will benefit from the rapid deployments in the 4G as service providers continue investing to expand their networks over the next 5 years.
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The report also highlighted that TD-LTE (Time Division LTE - using unpaired spectrum) will play a significant role in driving the LTE expansion with China, Japan and India being the major drivers in deployment. The announcement of a joint infrastructure company by China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom is another key development in this area, as Far East and China is expected to account for the majority of the 4G LTE service revenues by 2019. Another key point in the report is that nearly 1 in 3 smartphones shipped this year will be LTE enabled, a trend that is expected to continue growing in the near term. The GSA (Global Mobile Suppliers Association) confirmed that 168 manufacturers have announced 1,889 LTE-enabled user devices, including operator and frequency variants, along with 300 commercial network launches, added Juniper in its statement.
“TD-LTE will play a significant role, especially in the emerging markets, pushed by China Mobile's need to support TD-LTE and accelerate its commercial deployment in China. There are 36 commercial TD-LTE networks and we expect active TD-LTE connections to demonstrate a higher annual growth rate when compared to FD-LTE (Frequency Division) over the next five years"
- Nitin Bhas, Report Author