Barriers to deploying 4G are nonexistent at this point, and the main driver for 4G is the lower cost per megabyte of data, according to a survey of 24 global service providers that was conducted by IHS. 84 percent of IHS Markit’s service provider respondents are already running LTE‑Advanced (LTE-A) networks.
IHS said the most deployed LTE-Advanced feature among operator respondents is inter-band carrier aggregation, followed by enhanced inter-cell interference coordination and LTE‑Advanced coordinated multipoint.
The IHS survey also found that Voice over LTE (VoLTE) is exploding: three-quarters of those surveyed are offering VoLTE, up from just a quarter last year. This will not necessarily lead to imminent 2G or 3G shutdown, but 2G is rising on the agenda. In addition, over 50 percent of respondents plan to deploy LTE in unlicensed spectrum (LTE-U) by 2018.
