The Market View
Abd‐Elhamid M. Taha, Hossam S. Hassanein, Najah A. Abu Ali · 2011
This chapter overviews the market status and outlook for IMT-Advanced technologies. It discusses the status of the mobile and wireless market today, in terms of both networks and handsets, and considering other relevant aspects. The chapter draws on the possible evolution tracks that is taken by operators in getting to 4G networks. It is organized in two parts. The first part discusses the recent and the near future efforts in the market as they move towards deploying IMT-Advanced networks. It elaborates on the pre-IMT-Advanced activity, and the possible evolution tracks that operators might take towards next genet generation networks. The second part builds on the market description and describes the outlook for IMT-Advanced markets. It also describes the interplay and the effect of spectrum deregulation, the proliferation of “small cells”, including relay stations, femtocells and WiFi Spread. Finally, it concludes with a brief comment on the road ahead. Controlled Vocabulary Terms 3G mobile communication; 4G mobile communication; femtocells; IEEE 802.11 standards