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Tariff Consultancy predicts customer growth and lower costs for LTE
LTE mobile broadband services are set to have significantly more subscribers by the end of 2016.
Conducted by Tariff Consultancy, the report claimed there will be more than 250 million users of these super-fast mobile broadband connections by the end of 2016, thanks in part to a significant drop in subscription costs.
Over the five-year period, average LTE pricing is expected to decline by over 60 per cent to around €20 (£17) per month, with this downturn set to be caused by greater competition in the market as an increasing number of operators begin supporting the technology.
In contrast, the typical global cost for a top-of-the-range LTE package is currently €50 per month on a two-year contract, the researchers revealed.
At present, approximately 60 per cent of the world's LTE services are in Europe, with countries such as Sweden and Lithuania among the earliest adopters.
Scandinavian operator TeliaSonera launched the world's first 4G LTE mobile broadband networks in December 2009, initially rolling out the proposition to Oslo and Stockholm.
The next-generation mobile infrastructure theoretically allows customers to take advantage of up to 100Mbps download speeds - significantly faster than the rates available on the UK's average fixed-line broadband connection.
TeliaSonera has continued its 4G rollout in Lithuania this year and also offers the service in Norway, Finland, Denmark and Estonia.
Margrit Sessions, managing director of Tariff Consultancy, said it is "clear" that revenues and subscriber numbers for 4G mobile broadband packages will rise "substantially" over the next five years.
"LTE mobile broadband services will start to adopt the same mass market characteristics of the existing fixed broadband and 3G mobile broadband services with increased speeds but price competition," she added.
"The onus will be on the operators to bundle other services into their LTE offer and develop more compelling user-based applications and content services as well as simply providing large LTE mobile broadband access capacity."