LTE Technology Will Dominate 4G Subscribers by 2014, WiMAX Loses

As the transition from 3G to 4G wireless connectivity unfolds, customers have been subscribing to the WiMAX technology, but a new study by iSupply says that LTE will soon enough overshadow WiMAX completely.

For 2011, the number of worldwide WiMAX subscribers is expected to be of 14.9 million, around twice as many as in 2010, when they were of 6.8 million.

LTE (Long-term evolution) subscribers won't be as many, their number predicted at about 10.4 million, but the rate of growth is monumental.

For the sake of comparison, the total of worldwide LTE users in 2010 was zero in 2009 and just 702.000 in 2010.

Granted, according to the International Telecommunications Union, neither WiMAX nor LTE are really considered 4G technologies, but they have high enough data transmission speeds that the industry doesn't really find this fact relevant.

The basic idea of iSupply's press release is that LTE will exceed 4G in terms of subscribers by a factor of nine in 2014.

This means that WiMAX will have 33.4 million users, while long-term evolution will have 303.1 million.

“With WiMAX enjoying a two- to three-year head start in next-generation network deployments, it presently enjoys a major advantage in market share in the 4G segment,” said Francis Sideco, principal analyst for wireless research at IHS.

“However, with LTE supported by most of the leading wireless operators worldwide, it will rise to surpass WiMAX in 2012 and then dominate worldwide during the following years.”

“As is normal for the industry, while older wireless technologies such as 2G and 3G continue to be in use in every part of the world, the transition to higher-speed broadband networks is under way, and the race is on to determine which 4G technology will provide the expected performance and enhancements from day one,” the release further states.