Japan Will Account For More Than 50% of Asian LTE Subscriber Base by 2015

London, UK – October 21, 2009 – Informa Telecoms and Media today announced that Japan will make up more than half of Asia Pacific’s forecast 14.4 million Long Term Evolution (LTE) subscribers, by end-2015. NTT DoCoMo and smaller Japanese data-centric cellco, eMobile, will be among the first to launch LTE services in the region, with DoCoMo planning commercial availability in December 2010 using the 2100MHz spectrum band. As there is not enough spectrum at 2100MHz to support a full LTE deployment, however, DoCoMo will use its newly allocated spectrum at 1.5GHz for LTE come 2012.

According to Nicole McCormick, Senior Analyst at Informa Telecoms & Media, “DoCoMo is taking a very rapid approach and is rolling out LTE as quickly as possible, bypassing HSPA+ completely. On the other hand, eMobile, has already launched 21Mbps services and view HSPA+ as an important stepping stone to LTE.”

NTT DoCoMo, eMobile and China Mobile will be the first to launch LTE services in the region, with Hong Kong operator CSL likely to follow shortly afterwards. And, although Asian mobile operators will be among the first to launch LTE services next year, implementation strategies will vary greatly across the Asia-Pacific region.
CSL is also taking the HSPA+ route, while China Mobile is pursuing the other “flavour” of LTE, namely TD-LTE, and will roll-out its harmonised TDD-FDD LTE platform in late -2010. “This year, China Mobile began its commercial 3G platform, TD-SCDMA,” notes McCormick. “The service was reluctantly rolled out by China Mobile upon the insistence of the Chinese government, but 2010 will be the year when China Mobile makes its true high speed mobile play with LTE.”

So far, Japan and Hong Kong are the only Asian countries to have awarded spectrum for LTE purposes, while regulators elsewhere are scrambling to free up spectrum blocks for LTE.

“It’s no longer a case for operators whether they will pursue LTE, or not,” says McCormick. “Rather, Asian operators are in the midst of a spectrum grab for LTE. Operators are asking not only `what spectrum is coming up for release for LTE?’, but `how can I repurpose my existing spectrum for LTE?’”

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