LTE will 'dominate' wireless infrastructure budgets by 2013: report

As 4G LTE coverage and usage increases, so will the budgets of wireless providers building out these wireless infrastructures, according to a new report from IHS iSuppli.

While this might seem quite obvious, the amounts that telcos are going to have to spend are the key points here.

The report predicts that global spending on LTE technology is projected to reach $24.3 billion in 2013 -- almost three times as much as the $8.7 billion figure expected for this year.

Overall, iSuppli's report posits that LTE will end up dominating wireless infrastructure budgets as soon as next year.

IHS director and principal analyst for communications and consumer electronics research, Jagdish Rebello, cited in the report that the number of mobile network operators that are experimenting with, deploying and/or commercially operating 4G LTE networks has grown to total approximately 200 worldwide, up from 160 in 2010.

While 3.5G remains the dominant air interface technology in the mobile infrastructure market, the 4G LTE space has been gaining momentum. This trend started in the second half of 2009 when some wireless operators in Europe, North America, Japan and South Korea started to deploy LTE technology...

...And such widespread support will drive carrier spending on LTE to surpass 3.5G by next year.

Another survey published today, this one from personal cloud provider Funambol, found that 89 percent of mobile users think that their digital content usage and volume is "out of control."

Thus, one could draw the conclusion that there is definitely a need to build out the LTE infrastructure quickly to accommodate the escalating amount of data consumption, particularly in countries where smartphone ownership is rising.

But the question remains asks whether are wireless providers acting quickly enough. Graph via IHS iSuppli

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