To date 422 LTE networks have launched in 143 countries, with 106 operators having commercially launched services in the last year alone, according to the latest GSA statistics.
LTE-Advanced has also taken hold worldwide, the industry body said. Over 30% of LTE operators are investing in LTE-A and 88 operators in 45 countries have commercially launched networks using the technology.
Of these, 15 LTE-A networks support Cat 4 devices offering speeds of 100 Mbps to 150 Mbps, while 73 support Category 6 with speeds of 150 Mbps to 300 Mbps.
In total 37 LTE-A networks support the top speed available of 300 Mbps. Several operators are also trialing LTE-A Cat 9 networks supporting peak speeds of 450 Mbps.
The 1800-MHz band continues to be the most widely used frequency band for LTE, in use in 187 commercial networks in 89 countries. The next most popular contiguous spectrum bands are 2.6-GHz (in use in 100 networks) and 800-MHz (in use in 91).
GSA data also show that 103 operators are investing in VoLTE deployments, trials or studies in 49 markets. There have been 25 commercial launches in 16 countries.
Finally, the industry body said the TD-LTE standard is also growing in popularity. Currently 59 operators – equivalent to nearly one in seven LTE operators – have deployed LTE in the TDD mode in 35 countries. A total of 17 operators have deployed dual-mode FDD/TDD LTE.