No surprise: LTE equipment spend surpasses WiMax next year
blog.connectedplanetonline.com
by Kevin FitchardApril 27th, 2010
New forecasts this week from IDC predict that spending on LTE will exceed WiMax gear by the end of next year, with global LTE infrastructure revenue reaching nearly $8 billion by 2014. IDC cites more than 100 operator commitments to LTE — including nine of the 10 largest global carriers — as well a dozen new LTE networks scheduled to launch this year as driving LTE equipment sales.
Other findings from IDC’s study of the wireless infrastructure market:
* LTE provides capacity support/offload for 3G networks, making it a complementary technology in the near term.
* The LTE equipment race is experiencing a “land grab” between incumbent 3G market leader Ericsson and the fast-rising Huawei, while Nokia Siemens and Alcatel Lucent work hard to remain relevant.
* In 2010, all LTE vendors, including the likes of Motorola, NEC, and Fujitsu, are increasing their go-to-market efforts, further amplifying competitive pressures.
* Iconic smartphone devices, coupled with growing mobile broadband laptop use, will continue to drive the explosion in mobile data traffic.
Connected Planet’s take,
Kevin Fitchard:
It was only a matter of a few big contracts. The WiMax Forum loves to point out that WiMax has hundreds of adherents all over the world, but with some notable large exceptions like Clearwire, the majority of them tend to be smaller wireless ISPs. That means a few large LTE deployments such as those from Verizon Wireless, AT&T and NTT DoCoMo can cause LTE to overtake WiMax in the 4G infrastructure market in a short time.
Some of IDC’s other conclusions are a bit puzzling, though. LTE will be used to take much of the data burden off of 3G networks, but its support for 3G technologies isn’t something inherent. Vendors still have to make dual-mode 3G-LTE devices, which they have also begun to do for WiMax operators. Of course, you actually have to have a 3G network to fall back on — a luxury many WiMax operators don’t have. But those that do, like Sprint, will take full advantage of it.
Also, I’m curious why IDC and other research firms rate Huawei so highly and give Alcatel-Lucent short shrift. I suppose you could look at Alcatel-Lucent as a regional 4G player, taking advantage of its 3G incumbency with both AT&T and VZW to win some early big contracts, while dismissing its global prospects. But there have been few big LTE contracts so far, and ALU has won a big piece of most of them. Meanwhile, Huawei continues to rack up deals around the world, but individually those contracts are small. Some of them are more future commitments to LTE rather than full-fledged LTE deployment deals. The majority of the world’s operators haven’t announced their LTE vendors, though, so maybe IDC’s analysts know something we don’t. |
