LTE, LTE-Advanced and WiMAX: Towards IMT-Advanced Networks

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The Market View

In October 2010, the ITU-R recognized 3GPP's LTE-Advanced and IEEE's WirelessMAN-Advanced interfaced as IMT-Advanced technologies. At the same time, the ITU-R recognized this qualifies both interfaces to be “true 4G” technologies [1].

Operators are currently dealing with a strong demand for broadband Internet, one that is evident across the different sectors. In 2010, demand for mobile data more than doubled, and underwent an overall growth rate of 190%. Video streaming, in particular, assumed a substantial portion of this increased demand, bearing on almost 40% of all application traffic. [2] By the end of the same year, the ITU Development (ITU-D) sector estimates a total of 5.3 billion mobile cellular subscriptions to have been made, with 940 million subscriptions being made to 3G networks with access available to around 90% of the world population [3]. Such indicators are motivating operators to deploy more and more 3G networks to respond to this increased demand.

At the same time, and as the ITU-D equally notes, the year 2010 marks the end of “double-digit mobile growth rate” overall, with the market reaching saturation in developed countries (an average of 116 subscriptions per 100 inhabitants), but with reasonable growth still to be expected in Asia and Pacific countries.

In what follows, we offer a detailed overview of the market status and outlook for IMT-Advanced technologies. In the next section, we discuss the status of the mobile and wireless market ...