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July 6, 2010

ABI Research’s latest survey of wireless carriers and mobile service operators points to 2011 as being the year of LTE technology.

The claim is buoyed by the fact that Verizon Wireless and DoCoMo in Japan will begin large roll-outs by the end of this year.

“Overall, 132 networks have reported trials or plans to launch LTE commercially, 32 more than the end of 2009,” ABI Research analyst Bhavya Khanna said. “Verizon has also hinted at the availability of LTE-based handsets by May 2011,” added Khanna.

However, ABI researchers caution that this doesn’t mean the end of Wi-MAX, at least just not yet.

Overall, there are about 190 Wi-MAX networks in commercial or trial phases. That number will grow after India’s broadband spectrum auction in 2011.

Also, Clearwire continues to build out WiMAX networks in the U.S. Their adoption rate is happening faster because of the launch of the HTC EVO 4G, a WiMAX-enabled handset.

LTE technology presents the biggest threat to Wi-MAX. The technology operates on the same bandwidth as current WiMAX networks. If the technology proves more advanced, with faster speeds, several WiMAX operators could migrate to LTE.

The report also highlights how wireless operators can’t forget their current 3G networks. Upgrades like HSPA+ are also helping with the data demand on WCDMA networks.

Operators like T-Mobile USA and Vodafone in Europe have chosen HSPA+ to upgrade their network. As of March 2010, about 42 operators had trials or launched HSPA+ networks.

The report, titled “Wireless Spectrum, Services and Technology Deployment Market Data” is a comprehensive source of information for all network providers. Also in the data is a summary of the major network supplier contracts by location and network.

It’s a detailed report that helps with future LTE deployment plans. They did a good job not to call WiMAX dead with LTE deployments, however.

It’s long been chronicled that the two 4G technologies can coexist, but LTE will be launched on a very large scale next year.

Additionally, AT&T plans on launching LTE at some point next year as well, but will upgrade to HSPA+ first, the natural path set forth by the 3GPP.

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Source: ABI Research.