As of the end of last month, there were 200 LTE networks in commercial operation in 76 countries, according to GSA, the Global mobile Suppliers Association. A total of 54 operators launched LTE service in the first 7 months of 2013.
Alan Hadden, President of the GSA, said: “In this interim announcement GSA confirms that 106 LTE networks were commercially launched in the last 12 months, representing 112% annual growth. LTE is a mainstream mobile broadband technology and is the fastest developing mobile system technology ever.”
LTE service has been introduced to 12 new markets so far this year: Chile, Iceland, Iraq, Lebanon, Malaysia, New Zealand, Paraguay, Qatar, Spain, Thailand, US Virgin Islands, and Venezuela.
The breakdown of the 200 commercially launched networks announced today is as follows:
- 182 networks were deployed using the FDD mode
- 9 networks were deployed in TDD mode (sometimes referred to as TD-LTE)
- 9 networks are using both FDD and TDD modes
- 200 Total
Full details of LTE market developments including network deployments and service launches worldwide will be published in the next update of GSA’s Evolution to LTE report, which will be available soon.
