Th Global mobile Suppliers Association (GSA) confirmed that 222 operators have commercially launched LTE services in 83 countries.
Some highlights of their most recent report:
- 109 LTE networks were commercially launched in the past 12 months.
- 474 operators are investing in LTE in 138 countries, including 421 firm operator commitments to build LTE networks in 128 countries, plus 53 additional operators engaged in various trials, studies, etc. in a further 10 countries.
- The majority of LTE operators have deployed the FDD mode of the standard.
- The most widely used band in network deployments continues to be 1800 MHz (band 3) which is used in 43% of commercially launched LTE networks.
- The next most popular contiguous bands are 2.6 GHz (band 7) used in 30% of networks, followed by 800 MHz (band 20) which is used in over 12% of networks today.
- Interest in the TDD mode is strengthening and global. 23 LTE TDD systems are commercially launched in 18 countries, of which 11 that have been deployed in combined LTE FDD & TDD operations.
“Having globally aligned spectrum bands is a great result for end consumers, as these make international roaming easier, and help drive early device availability. Adoption of the APT700 MHz band plan represents a major opportunity for regional and global spectrum harmonization that could deliver the benefits of economies of scale for end-user devices,” stated Alan Hadden, President of the GSA.