LTE subscriber base to exceed 100m, Starcomms targets December facility upgrade

THREE years after its original deployment, worldwide Long Term Evolution (LTE) subscribers are projected to surpass the 100-million mark this year, with expectations of a 198.1 million figure, up from a remarkable 115 per cent from 92.3 million last year, according to IHS iSuppli.

Since being adopted in 2010 with just 612,000 users, the 4G next-generation wireless technology has grown by leaps and bounds across the globe, surging by an astounding factor of 22 to 13.2 million subscribers in 2011, and then jumping another 599 percent in 2012 to nearly 100 million subscribers.

In Nigeria, leading Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) operatorsβ€”Starcomms has targeted December 2013 and early 2014 upgrade of its network to LTE.

Speaking at a news conference in Lagos on the $210 investment of Capcom into Starcomms, the new Starcomms CEO-designate, Dem Elesho, said part of the new investment plan was to attract more highly profitable data subscribers in the short term with the launch of high speed 4G mobile Broadband services in the next 12-18 months.

Elesho said the aggregation of spectrum allocations from Multi-Links and MTS, which is a contiguous 20MHz of spectrum in the 1900MHz range, the largest allocation of any telecoms provider in Nigeria will enable Starcomms to deliver a complete range of mobile broadband services using new generation IP-enabled, high speed broadband 4G/LTE technology.

Already, Airtel Nigeria said it has successfully completed LTE trial in Lagos.

According to the company, the Lagos trial threw up exciting results as data users could open up simultaneous HD Videos on Youtube without buffering. Download speed, under ideal conditions was 37 Megabits per Second (Mbps), while under non ideal conditions, was 32 Mbps; Upload speed was – 10.6 Mbps. Measurement under non ideal condition was done using www.Speedtest.net.

Speaking on the success of the trial, the Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of Airtel Nigeria, Rajan Swaroop said Airtel is committed to strengthening its position as a true pioneer of innovation in the Nigerian telecommunications domain, saying this is in line with its overall corporate vision of becoming the most loved brand in the daily lives of Nigerians.

Swaroop said: β€œAt Airtel, we pride ourselves as leaders and we are passionate about continuously creating the next innovation to empower telecoms consumers and enrich the lives of our customers across the country. β€œ