At least half a million base stations will
be installed or upgraded for TD-LTE by the end of 2016.
“It was only two years ago that nearly
every WiMAX operator, including operators with unpaired TDD frequency spectrum,
were planning to deploy WiMAX 2. Today, almost all of them have switched plans
and are deploying TD-LTE instead,” said
Aditya Kaul, practice director, mobile networks, ABI Research.
WiMAX operators are generally offering
fixed WiMAX service based on the IEEE 802.16d specification, or mobile WiMAX
service based on IEEE 802.16e. The IEEE 802.16m standard (also known as WiMAX
2) was developed to provide higher data rates and increased capacity and the
members of the WiMAX Forum committed to follow this evolution path for 4G.
“Despite starting two years later than
WiMAX 2, TD-LTE emerged as a viable alternative,” said Jim Eller, principal
analyst, wireless infrastructure, ABI Research.
China Mobile was the early promoter of
TD-LTE technology, as a 4G evolution path for its 3G network based on TD-SCDMA
technology. Other operators, however, saw better advantages in aligning with
the global LTE standards.
TD-LTE commercial service has been launched
in Brazil, Japan, Poland, Saudi Arabia, and other countries. TD-LTE deployments
are underway in Australia and Scandinavia and large-scale TD-LTE networks are
planned in the United States and India.
The 600-pound gorilla in TD-LTE is still
China. China Mobile started its second phase of the TD-LTE Large Scale Trial
Initiative (LSTI) in December and it will run until June 2012. China Mobile
announced plans last month to install an additional 10,000 to 20,000 TD-LTE
base stations in 2012 and perhaps another 60,000 in 2013.
According to Dell’Oro, telecom equipment and solutions providers Ericsson and
Alcatel-Lucent won more of the emerging market for LTE wireless network
technology in Q3 2011, helped by their strong position in the United States.
Ericsson controlled 44 percent of the $647 million market in the third quarter,
while Alcatel’s share rose to 30 percent.
Thailand is set to experience a full pace
of 3G network expansion, along with a few planned 4G pilot projects, in 2012. Tablet-based enterprise mobility solutions and
cloud-based services are likely to become innovative business models for mobile
operators, giving them a new revenue stream in the mobile broadband era.
By TelecomLead.com Team
editor@telecomlead.com
