LTE

2012 will likely go down as the year when LTE became a standard smartphone feature rather than a luxury. Strategy Analytics has put out new research this week showing that the fourth quarter of 2012 “witnessed phenomenal +1100% annual growth for LTE handset volumes, led by Apple (AAPL) and Samsung (005930) in developed markets.” 2012 was certainly a banner year for LTE in the United States after Sprint (S) finally got around to launching its own LTE services and both Verizon (VZ) and AT&T (T) continued expanding their LTE networks to cover the majority of major markets throughout the country. With much of the U.S. now covered, carriers’ next big milestone will be deploying Voice over LTE (VoLTE) services that will let users make calls over LTE and thus potentially end the need for separate voice and data plans.

In many ways, the United States is way ahead of the curve when it comes to LTE service since we have three major carriers that offer LTE in the majority of major markets throughout the country. But GigaOM points us to a new study from British network-testing firm OpenSignal showing that while America has the most overall LTE networks of any country, it only ranks eighth in terms of network speeds with an average download speed of 9.6Mbps. In this respect, the U.S. trails LTE speed champion Sweden, whose networks deliver average download speeds of over 22Mbps, as well as its northern neighbor Canada, whose networks deliver average download speeds of just over 18Mbps. More →

High-speed 4G LTE networks are the future of mobile data in the United States and around the world. A number of major wireless providers have already deployed LTE networks and others are expected to follow soon. The Yankee Group found that by the end of 2012 there will be 152 commercial LTE networks across 65 countries, an increase from 47 networks in 2011. The research firm predicts that in 2013 there will be roughly 114 million mobile subscribers utilizing the high-speed technology, a number that is expected to more than double to 258 million by the end of 2014. The global voice and messaging revenue mobile operators are expected to make is also predicted to fall from $769 billion in 2011 to $697 billion in 2016. As a result, Yankee expects service providers to bundle additional content apps and services with LTE subscriptions, as well as increasing their cloud-based storage offerings. More →