The ubiquity of high-speed mobile broadband and the launch of 4G Long-Term-Evolution (LTE) will help extend the benefits of cloud, M2M and mobile applications in business in 2013 and beyond.
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P1 surpassed the half a million subscriber mark this year and expanded network coverage to East Malaysia starting with the state of Sabah. It also secured 20 MHz of 2.6-GHz spectrum to roll out 4G LTE.
Outlook 2013
“Next year will be an interesting and significant year, as we will see the next generation 4G technology both Time-Division (TD) and Frequency-Division (FD) Long-Term-Evolution gear up momentum,” Lai says. “Telecommunications operators will start to embrace the technology, thus we will see active deployments worldwide.”
“Additionally, 4G-enabled smart devices will start making inroads from the second half of 2013 and small screen will continue to dominate the mobile broadband space,” he adds. “As IDC predicts, smart mobile devices -- smartphones, tablets, e-readers -- will grow by almost 20% in 2013 and generate nearly 57% of the industry's overall growth. Broadband applications will continue to take advantage and push the limits of 4G network and devices.”
Lai also expects coopetition among operators to intensify due to the scarcity of spectrum, an important enabling factor for operators to fully tap into the true potential of 4G LTE. “For instance, you need at least 40MHz of spectrum to fully tap into the technology potential of LTE-Advanced which offers 1Gbps speed,” he says. “Hence, without the luxury of unlimited spectrum, many operators would have to join forces to face the onslaught of what I call the perpetual data tsunami.”