2015/11/11 Strategy Analytics: LTE Advanced to Cover 70 Percent of World’s Population by 2020

One in Three Operators Committed to LTE-A and Growing

Boston, MA – 10 November 2015 – As operator interest in LTE Advanced increases and network deployments accelerate, many will need to rely on three LTE carriers to make full use of LTE-A, as outlined in the report, “Carrier Aggregation: Essential to Long-Term Operator and OEM Success” published by the Strategy Analytics Wireless Operators Strategies (WOS) and RF & Wireless Component Service (RFWC).

Click here for report: http://bit.ly/1Pl84a1

According to Phil Kendall, Director of WOS, “Fragmented spectrum holdings mean that in 2017, about half of all LTE wireless operators will have to use carrier aggregation across three carriers, or LTE bands, to achieve LTE Cat. 6 data rates (downlink of 300 Mbps).  We think LTE Cat. 6 will be considered the minimum needed to support a good user experience for media-rich applications in mid- to premium-tier smartphones and tablets.  From an operator perspective, carrier aggregation not only provides faster speeds, but it also improves network performance by balancing traffic across bands.”

Christopher Taylor, co-author of the report and director of the RF & Wireless Components advisory service at Strategy Analytics, added that “OEMs now have more choices in chipsets that support carrier aggregation, however, Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon 820 is the first to support 3x downlink carrier aggregation, which many operators will need over the next two years in LTE-A devices running on their networks.”

 Source: Strategy Analytics