4G to overtake GSM technology in 2018 – Ericsson

Mobile telecom giant, Ericsson, says the LTE (4G) will overtake GSM as the largest access technology by number of subscriptions in 2018.

According to its latest edition of Ericsson Mobility Report, dominant access technology will be LTE (also known as 4G) in 2018, making it the fastest-growing mobile technology in history.

“The speed with which this technology has been rolled out and adopted is unprecedented. It has taken only five years for LTE to cover 2.5 billion people, compared to eight years for WCDMA/HSPA, or 3G. In the first quarter of this year (2017) alone, 250 million new LTE subscriptions were added,” the report stated.

It also shows the highest year-on-year mobile data growth globally since 2013, led by massive growth in India, and highlights the underlying need for mobile data. Nigeria is among the top five countries with over 3 million mobile subscriptions net additions in Q1 2017.

Niklas Heuveldop, Chief Strategy Officer and Head of Technology and Emerging Business, Ericsson, says: “Based on measurements made in hundreds of mobile networks, the Ericsson Mobility Report data truly illustrates the tremendous underlying growth in the industry. 4G subscriptions are increasing faster than ever, Voice over LTE uptake is accelerating and traffic growth has reached levels we have not seen since 2013.

“I am particularly excited to see the industry’s major steps to progress network evolution, including the approval of the Non-Standalone 5G New Radio (NR) that will enable early 5G deployments. According to our forecast, we anticipate that this will lead to more than half a billion 5G subscriptions and a population coverage of 15 percent by 2022,” he noted.

Ericsson also foresees 2.6 billion new mobile broadband subscribers will be added through 2022 – averaging to more than one million each day. “By the end of 2022, total smartphone mobile data traffic will have increased 9X, reaching 66ExaBytes per month,” the report added.

Similarly, it says while LTE uptake is driven by demand for improved user experience and faster networks, 5G deployment will also be driven by the need for enhanced mobile broadband capabilities as well as industry solutions for efficiency and automation.

“5G will be the one network to support a diversity of use cases. More than half a billion 5G subscriptions are expected to be activated by 2022, not including IoT connections,” it stated.