5G Americas, the industry trade association and voice of 5G and LTE for the Americas, today announced that global LTE connections reached the milestone of 2.5 billion at the end of the third quarter of 2017. There was an increase of 838 million new LTE subscriptions in one year ending September 2017 according to data from Ovum. Global market share for LTE achieved 32 percent at the end of the third quarter of 2017, an increase of almost 10 percentage points in one year. The North America region continued as a global leader with LTE market share of 73 percent, higher than any other world region. Latin America exhibited continued growth with market share for LTE increasing to 26 percent.
“Although the global wireless industry is working on preparations for 5G in the future, currently operators are deploying more advanced LTE capabilities, and LTE subscriptions are continuing to grow at a fantastic rate,” stated Chris Pearson, President of 5G Americas.
New LTE network deployments continue as well as many network upgrades from LTE to LTE-Advanced. As of mid-November, there were 562 commercial LTE deployments worldwide, while 211 of those operators have already evolved to LTE-Advanced
Source: http://thenewsreports.com/global-lte-connections-hit-2-5-billion-milestone/37878/staff