There is no question that in the long term LTE will become the mainstay 4G network technology, although its universal use is still in the future. Until then, says ABI Research, some service providers will benefit from a dual-platform strategy based on both LTE and WiMAX.
Who stands to benefit? Some operators, such as Sprint and Clearwire, KDDI and UQ Communications, and KT, will use both technologies for some time. Multi-standard base stations now being deployed support several generations of technologies as well as both 4G standards. There will also be multi-mode 4G chipsets in devices. New data on these and other 4G topics are presented in ABI Research’s “4G Subscriber, Device, and Networks Market Data” which contains regional and selected country-level segmentation for the mobile WiMAX and LTE markets. It is part of the firm’s 4G Research Service.