The ‘Status of the LTE Ecosystem’ report from the Global mobile Suppliers Association (GSA), has upgraded its figure for LTE device availability, based on actual announcements by manufacturers.

The existance of almost 200 devices further demonstrates that LTE momentum is gathering pace.

In what must be music to the ears of LTE Network Operators, the GSA has provided factual data to show that device availability has outstripped - by three times – the previous forecast of just eight months ago.

There has also been a lot of discussion recently about the LTE Spectrum bands, and data from the same report suggests a hardening of the preferred choices for LTE operation.

These bands (See GSA image above left) mirror those recently cited by Informa telecoms, in their press release on the “eight core LTE bands”; 700MHz FDD, 800MHz FDD, 900MHz FDD, 1800MHz FDD, 2100MHz FDD, 2600MHz FDD, 2300MHz TDD, 2600MHz TDD.

The Informa Telecoms research agrees with the GSA statistics - on LTE devices per band - that Operators will initially plump for available spectrum, rather than waiting for new bands or for capacity to be freed up.

Further reading

• The GSA provides a mine of data on GSM/EDGE/WCDMA-HSPA/LTE announcements, providing analysis on market developments and trends. Their web site provides free access to these resources: www.gsacom.com

• The Informa Telecoms & Media Press release on the Eight core LTE bands is still on-line.

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