Making the Case for 3G LTE - Global Mobile Broadband

US : A new report published by the UMTS Forum predicts that LTE (Long Term Evolution) - Global Mobile Broadband could generate total revenues of €150 billion for operators by 2015.

The new report - titled Global Mobile Broadband: Market Potential for 3G LTE - forecasts that smooth evolution from today’s investments in 3G UMTS (WCDMA/HSPA) will kick-start a new wave of high-speed interactive services, strengthening ARPU in many mobile markets.

Specifically, the report predicts that subscriptions to LTE - Global Mobile Broadband networks will exceed 400 million by 2015, or double today's number of WCDMA/HSPA customers. Furthermore, revenues from LTE - Global Mobile Broadband will represent more than 15% of all mobile revenues that are predicted to approach €1 trillion globally in 2015.

While it's expected that Western Europe and developed Asia will account for the majority of LTE - Global Mobile Broadband customers, the report forecasts strong uptake in developing markets by 2015.

While non-voice services currently represent just 10-15% of revenues in developed markets, the study suggests that LTE - Global Mobile Broadband will drive this proportion to 36% by 2015.

The report is based on original research conducted for the UMTS Forum by Analysys Research (www.analysys.com), who modelled future demand for global mobile broadband by extrapolating current market trends.

With technical specifications for LTE now stabilised within the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), it's an anticipated that the first LTE - Global Mobile Broadband networks will be commercialised in 2010. Wide-scale rollout is anticipated from 2011.

Building on current investments in the GSM/UMTS Evolution ‘family’ of 3GPP systems, LTE - Global Mobile Broadband provides a smooth evolutionary path to far higher data speeds and lower carriage costs with more efficient, flexible use of operators' radio resources.

With more than 165 HSPA networks already commercialised or in deployment, 3GPP’s significant global footprint will support a future mass market for high-speed, high capacity services at significantly lower cost than greenfield investment in other broadband wireless systems.

Enabled by SAE (Systems Architecture Evolution) that offers a 'flat' all-IP architecture, LTE - Global Mobile Broadband also promises lower latency that will support multiplayer gaming, social networking, high-quality videoconferencing and a new generation of other real-time interactive applications. The report also predicts that LTE - Global Mobile Broadband’s low latency and reduced per-bit costs will drive the development of remote monitoring and other machine-to-machine (M2M) applications.

"This new report demonstrates an extremely positive investment case for LTE - Global Mobile Broadband", comments UMTS Forum Chairman Jean-Pierre Bienaimé. "While it requires an upgrade of existing 3G infrastructures, dramatically reduced opex costs compared with WCDMA and HSPA could see operators break even as soon as 3-4 years after deploying LTE - Global Mobile Broadband."

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