Around 80 per cent of mobile broadband services will be enabled by HSPA and LTE technologies by 2012, with WiMAX only managing to gain a lowly 4 per cent of the market over the same period, said Ericsson's senior VP and CTO, Hakan Eriksson.
While mobile operators using W-CDMA, CDMA 2000 and TD-SCDMA are all expected by Eriksson to migrate to LTE-enabled services in the future, the Ericsson executive also claims WiMAX service operators, such as Clearwire, have also decided to adopt LTE. With WiMAX and LTE technologies compatible in some areas, Taiwan-based WiMAX equipment makers should accelerate their development of LTE-enabled products, leveraging their WiMAX expertise, Eriksson urged.
The latest figures from the GSA show more than 20 mobile operators around the world have already committed to LTE deployment, while 171 commercial HSPA networks are already in operation.
One of the key players affecting the speed of LTE adoption, Verizon Wireless, is set to announce the network vendors it will be working with at this week's Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. The company has been trialling the technology in conjunction with Vodafone, and is said to have told vendors the network needs to be running this year.
For more on this story:
itwire, Digitimes and engadget
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