LTE MARKET ANALYSIS

Security concerns have become a major restraint in the growth of the global Long-Term Evolution (LTE) Market. As LTE networks are Internet Protocol (IP)-based, they are more prone to cyber-attacks and security threats compared to earlier generation cellular networks. As sensitive user data and financial transactions are being carried through these networks, protecting the network infrastructure and user privacy has become a big challenge. Several security exploits have been reported on the 4G LTE networks in the recent past that raised serious concerns about network vulnerabilities and potential data leaks.

Many operators are still unable to fully mitigate security risks and address vulnerabilities at different layers of the LTE network. As attacks are evolving rapidly with new techniques, operators struggle to plug security holes on a continuous basis. This has increased infrastructure costs significantly for operators to deploy advanced security safeguards like encryption, authentication and regular software updates. The need to ensure strict privacy regulations like Europe's GDPR has also pushed up compliance expenditure. High security management costs have made network upgrades and expansions less commercially attractive for operators, especially in cost-sensitive developing markets. Unless these security challenges are addressed comprehensively, consumer fears of data thefts are likely to hold back the growth of LTE subscriptions and usage over the coming years.

Market Opportunities: Emergence of IoT and connected devices

The emergence of Internet of Things (IoT) and connected devices brings tremendous opportunities for the global Long-Term Evolution (LTE) market. With more things getting connected through the internet, the amount of data exchange is expected to explode exponentially in the coming years. This is where LTE comes into the picture. Being a faster and more efficient wireless standard compared to 3G, LTE is well-placed to support the rising data demands created by billions of new IoT connections.

To summarize, the continued advancement of IoT technologies and their growing real-world implementations across industry verticals presents a major growth driver for LTE over the next few years. As networks support more IoT connections transmitting larger amounts of data, global LTE subscriptions and traffic are slated to rise significantly according to forecasts by impartial organizations like GSMA. This emerging trajectory clearly portends favorable prospects for stakeholders in the Long-Term Evolution (LTE) Market space.