LTE ECOSYSTEM

REPORT:
Status Update March 2021
Introduction
GSA (Global mobile Suppliers Association) monitors and researches worldwide mobile broadband developments and publishes facts, statistics
and trends. This report confirms that 19,422 LTE user devices have been identified as launched (including 386 commercial 5G devices also
supporting LTE) from 846 manufacturers and provides an analysis of the main developments and trends.

This report covers LTE FDD and TDD (TD-LTE) models and LTE-related cellular IoT devices standardised by 3GPP as UE Cat-M1/M2 and UE Cat-
NB1/NB2.

LTE user devices Figure 1: LTE user devices growth (count of devices in GAMBoD database, including
commercial 5G devices supporting LTE)
While 5G grabs the headlines, LTE still
dominates global mobile telecoms. There are
807 operators with commercially launched
public mobile or broadband fixed-wireless
access networks (GSA: NTS Database
March 2021). There were 5.95 billion LTE
subscriptions globally by the end of Q4 2020
(source: Omdia, March 2021). LTE accounts
for 62.2% of mobile subscriptions globally.
Given this huge market, it is not surprising
that there is a vibrant base of technology
suppliers supporting operators with LTE
networks and within that, a large number of
vendors selling a huge array of devices.

There are 19,422 LTE-capable user devices

including frequency and operator variants
from 846 suppliers verified in GSA’s GAMBoD
database, an 18% increase in the number of
devices since March 2020. The number of
devices catalogued in the GAMBoD database
has continued to grow rapidly, at an average
growth rate of over 2,900 devices per year
for the past four years.

©Copyright 2021 Global mobile Suppliers Association LTE Ecosystem: Status Update March 2021| 2
 Figure 2: 19,422 LTE user devices by form factor, March 2021

Form factor Table 1: The main FDD frequency bands supported by LTE-capable devices
The phone form factor accounts for the
LTE FDD Band Number of devices
largest number of identified devices with
11,173 phone models catalogued, including 1800 MHz Band 3 13,142
operator and frequency variants, giving a 2600 MHz Band 7 11,329
57.5% share of all LTE devices. The number
2100 MHz Band 1 11,226
of LTE-capable indoor and outdoor FWA
CPE stands at 661 devices, while the 850 MHz Band 5 7,997
number of other LTE-capable CPE (including 800 MHz Band 20 7,920
industrial/enterprise CPE, mobile hotspots 900 MHz Band 8 7,682
and other router devices) is 3,389 devices.
AWS Band 4 5,868
The LTE module and LTE-connected tablet
PC segments (1,564 and 1,273 devices 1900 MHz Band 2 5,623
respectively) are also large. Other categories APT700 Band 28 3,371
being tracked include USB modems (363
700 MHz Band 17 3,337
devices), asset trackers (243), cameras (172),
notebooks (129) and smart watches (86), as 700 MHz Band 12 2,829
well as car hotspots, vehicle on-board units 700 MHz Band 13 2,529
(OBUs), femtocells, fixed wireless terminals/ 800 MHz Band 26 1,625
phones, data loggers/IoT sensors, drones,
800 MHz Band 19 1,542
kiosk terminals, PC cards, POS machines,
projectors, smart-home devices, vehicle 1900 MHz Band 25 1,466
accessories, intercoms, encoders and voice
translators. Note 1: Manufacturers have not declared operating frequencies for some products.

FDD devices Note 2: Certain products are carrier- or country-specific and are therefore not available in all markets.

Note 3: A number of devices are currently listed as band ‘other’.

Most devices operate in the FDD mode;
there are now 17,278 devices identified as
supporting the LTE-FDD mode, up from
16,837 in December 2020. This is 89.0% of
the 19,422 LTE-capable user devices known
to GSA.

LTE networks are operating commercially in

many bands. The most popular spectrum
for LTE deployments is 1800 MHz and Band
3 also has the largest range of LTE-capable

©Copyright 2021 Global mobile Suppliers Association LTE Ecosystem: Status Update March 2021| 3
device models: 13,142 Band 3 user devices Table 2: The main TDD frequency bands supported by LTE-capable devices
are announced in the market, i.e. 67.7% of
LTE devices can operate using spectrum at LTE TDD Band Number of devices
1800 MHz. The ranges of devices supporting 2300 MHz Band 40 6,936
2600 MHz Band 7 and 2100 MHz Band 1 are
2600 MHz Band 41 5,678
also very strong, representing 58.3% and
57.8% of LTE devices respectively. 2600 MHz Band 38 5,508
1900 MHz Band 39 3,786
Table 1 confirms the frequency bands that
are most supported by LTE-FDD devices. 2000 MHz Band 34 715
3500 MHz Band 42 562
LTE-FDD user devices of course reflect the
diverse range of form factors found across 3700 MHz Band 43 415
LTE-capable devices generally. As above,
phones make up the largest share of all Note 1: Manufacturers have not declared operating frequencies for some products.

LTE-FDD device types: there are 10,224

Note 2: Certain products are carrier- or country-specific and are therefore not available in all markets.
phones identified as supporting FDD bands,
representing 59.2% of all LTE-FDD devices. Note 3: A number of devices are currently listed as band ‘other’.

TDD devices Figure 3: LTE-FDD user devices by form factor

3GPP decided from the beginning that LTE
must support both FDD and TDD modes with
the minimum possible difference between
the two modes. The emphasis has been on
leveraging synergies between the modes to
the largest extent possible. The result is that
almost all parts of the LTE specifications are
the same for both FDD and TDD.

Device support for LTE-TDD is well

established with 8,744 devices, i.e. 45% of
LTE devices in GAMBoD support the LTE-TDD
(TD-LTE) mode and this in turn supports
the growing number of LTE operators using
unpaired spectrum.

Table 2 confirms the frequency bands that

are most supported by LTE-TDD devices.

Bands 40 (2.3 GHz), 41 (2.6 GHz) and 38

(2.6 GHz) have the largest choice of TDD
terminals, with Band 39 also being well
supported.

• Terminal support for Band 40 = 79.3% (of Figure 4: LTE-TDD user devices by form factor
LTE-TDD devices announced)

• Terminal support for Band 41 = 64.9%

• Terminal support for Band 38 = 63.0%

• Terminal support for Band 39 = 43.3%

There is a good choice of multi-band and

dual-mode FDD-TDD devices.

The phone is the largest device category

supporting TDD: 5,300 phones are included
in GAMBoD.

©Copyright 2021 Global mobile Suppliers Association LTE Ecosystem: Status Update March 2021| 4
UE categories Figure 5: Number of LTE devices by max UE Cat rating, UE Cat-9 and above

and feature
support
Category 4, 6 and 7 UE devices

Many operators have launched or are

deploying networks supporting UE Category
4 devices. UE device Category 4 offers a
theoretical peak downlink rate of up to 150
Mbit/s with a peak uplink of up to 50 Mbit/s
on compatible networks. LTE-Advanced
deployment is now well established with
wide-scale commercialisation of carrier
aggregation to combine different spectrum
bands for greater bandwidth. There are 9,909
devices (51.0% of LTE devices) that support
Category 4 (excluding higher UE categories),
an additional 2,003 devices that can support
Category 6 (300/50 Mbit/s) and 713 that can
support Category 7 (300/100 Mbit/s).
eMBMS (LTE Broadcast) and PTT Cellular IoT LPWA devices
The numbers of devices capable of
(Push-to-Talk)
supporting higher UE categories is growing The majority of IoT LPWA devices are modules,
too, as Figure 5 shows. There are 47 devices capable of supporting though CPE/routers are a strong category of
LTE Broadcast services. Most of these form factor for LTE-1 devices, and there are an
A significant proportion of the high-end
devices are CPE devices and routers. increasing number of asset trackers and CPE/
devices (Cat-20 to Cat-22) are also 5G devices
routers across these three categories.
(53.5% of them, up from 47.6% last quarter). There are 191 devices (166 of them phones
and many are from specialist vendors of
Note that not all vendors publish details of UE
ruggedised equipment) supporting the Push-
category or up/downlink speeds. GSA holds
to-Talk (PTT) or Mission Critical Push-to-Talk
UE Cat data for 79.8% of the devices in the
(MCPTT) features.
GAMBoD database.

For updates on global LTE-Advanced and

Gigabit LTE network deployments, see the
Table 3: Cellular IoT LPWA devices counts by type
relevant reports at www.gsacom.com.

LTE technologies Characteristics Devices announced

VoLTE, ViLTE and EVS user
devices LTE Cat-1 Up to 10 Mbit/s; 20 MHz 584 (256 modules, 214
industrial and other CPE/
Operators worldwide are investing in VoLTE, routers, 66 asset trackers,
enabling an HD-voice experience for LTE users, 19 vehicle OBUs, 29 others)
with 280 operators identified as investing
LTE-M (Cat-M1) Up to 1 Mbit/s; 1.4 MHz 371 (170 modules,
in VoLTE by March 2021 and 228 launched
110 asset trackers, 70
networks. In GAMBoD, GSA has recorded
industrial and other CPE/
3,213 VoLTE-capable devices (up from 3,092
routers, 21 others)
in December 2020) including carrier and
frequency variants. Of these devices, 2,618 are NB-IoT (Cat-NB1) 10s of kbit/s to 100s 362 (172 modules, 96 asset
phones, which means 23.4% of LTE phones of kbit/s; 180 kHz trackers, 57 industrial and
announced are known to support VoLTE. narrowband other CPE/routers, 23 data
loggers/IoT sensors, 14
The number of ViLTE-capable devices listed in others)
the GSA database is 443 (up from 434 at the
end of December 2020). While video calling over
LTE does not have to make use of standards-
based ViLTE, operators offering VoLTE-based
HD-voice services sometimes also support
ViLTE-based video calling.

GSA has identified 178 devices supporting EVS

(Enhanced Voice Services).

©Copyright 2021 Global mobile Suppliers Association LTE Ecosystem: Status Update March 2021| 5
LTE devices for use in unlicensed Devices analysis using GAMBoD
spectrum
The GAMBoD devices database is now
• 287 LAA devices announced. updated on a monthly basis. Searching by
supplier, form factor, features, peak downlink
• 46 LTE-U devices announced.
and uplink speeds and operating frequency
• 16 LWA devices announced. is enabled. Results are presented as lists,
spreadsheets or charts. Charts may be used
There are also 343 devices in GAMBoD that
in documents or presentations, referencing
support LTE in the CBRS spectrum band
GSA as the source. Visit gsacom.com/
(Band 48).
gambod. Search criteria are:

The expanding range of LTE • manufacturer name

devices • product model number or name
4G/LTE and 5G headlines often focus
• form factor
on ever-rising performance milestones
and successes of networks and device • FDD and TDD spectrum bands
capabilities. It is equally important that
• UE categories (including IoT device
there is a good choice of LTE user terminals
categories)
to meet the needs of developing markets,
where cost factors and flexibility are • support for VoLTE, ViLTE and EVS
particularly important and can assist
• support for eMBMS (LTE Broadcast)
in opening new segments in developed
markets. • support for 4x4 MIMO

GAMBoD includes an extensive list of types • •support for 256QAM (downlink)

of LTE-connected terminals, including many
• support for unlicensed bands LTE-U/LAA/
produced by OEMs/ODMs, as well as the
LWA
premium mobile phone and CPE brands.
GSA regularly reaches out to low-cost • support for PTT and MCPTT over LTE
OEM/ODM suppliers of phones, tablet
• ruggedised products
PCs, routers etc. based in China, India and
other locations and includes many of their • 3G fallback technology: HSPA, HSPA+, DC-
products in GAMBoD. If you have details HSPA+, EV-DO, or TD-SCDMA.
about products you would like included
5G devices have also been added to the
in this database, please contact us at
database with details about new spectrum
research@gsacom.com
bands and 5G features, and GSA publishes a
separate monthly paper tracking the growth
of announced and commercial 5G devices.
See https://gsacom.com/technology/5g/ for
more details.

Access to GAMBoD is available to GSA

Members and Associates. Other companies
can subscribe to GAMBoD. For more info
email info@gsacom.com.

©Copyright 2021 Global mobile Suppliers Association LTE Ecosystem: Status Update March 2021| 6
ABOUT GSA
GSA is the voice of the global
mobile ecosystem and has
been representing mobile
suppliers since 1998.

GSA GAMBoD Database

Reports are based on data contained
in the GSA GAMBoD databases
which is a resource available to GSA
Members and Associates. Companies
and policy makers can subscribe as
a GSA Associate to the database to
gain insights into the source data
behind reports for their own research
purposes.

Discounted annual subscription are

available to regulators, government
agencies and mobile operators.

Please email info@gsacom.com for

more information.

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GU9 1LU

Info@gsacom.com

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©Global mobile Suppliers Association. 2021