The amazingly insightful folks at ABI Research are out with a new report which estimates that 676 million 4G LTE handsets will be shipped in 2015.
If that prediction proves prophetic, it will represent growth of 204 million units over 2014.
Additionally, ABI Research estimates that the total number of LTE connected devices shipped worldwide will exceed 1.89 billion units by the end 2019.
“With the proliferation of larger screen smart devices driving up the insatiable appetites for content and faster speeds, ABI Research estimates that there will be 350 commercial LTE networks forecasted by 4Q 2014,” says Cheri Wong, Research Analyst at ABI Research.
What’s more, ABI explains, LTE-Advanced is now commercial on 20 networks in 14 countries.
“To cope with the demand for higher data rates, FDD/TDD LTE carrier aggregation trials are starting to take place,” the news release from ABI reads. “For example, Ericsson, SingTel, and Qualcomm demonstrated a downlink speed of 260 Mbps in their trial. The first ever TDD-FDD LTE trial took place in February 2014 between Korea Telecom and SK Telecom, with assistance from Nokia Networks. The growing demand for data also emphasizes the need for additional bandwidth to support the massive strain on operator networks which can be alleviated through the refarming of unused spectrum.”
