North American mobile market transformed by rapid LTE progress

North America was home to 15 live LTE networks in Q3 2012, accounting for almost half (48%) of global LTE connections. The US totalled 20.5 million LTE connections last quarter compared to 1.0 million in Canada. US marker leader Verizon Wireless stands out as the largest LTE operator worldwide, responsible for one third of the global market with 14.9 million LTE connections.

Two years after the launch of the country’s first LTE network, 7% of the North American connections base has migrated to LTE. This represents a more rapid adoption than in most European or Asian markets (with the exception of Japan and South Korea), which are still lacking momentum due to spectrum fragmentation issues.

LTE spectrum in North America has been harmonised around the digital dividend and AWS bands, which has helped fuel rapid development of attractive devices and allowed aggressive network deployments.