The Global mobile Suppliers Association has released updated figures for its Evolution to LTE report, revealing that there are now 218 operators investing in LTE worldwide, with 91 commercial roll-outs expected by 2012. This number consists of 166 firm commercial deployments either in progress or planned across 62 countries and 52 operators in 19 countries that are engaged in trials.

Alan Hadden, President, GSA said in a statement that, “LTE is the fastest developing mobile system technology ever. The number of operators investing in LTE has increased 98 per cent since June 2010, while the number of firm deployment commitments has more than doubled (107 per cent) in the same period. We have again raised our market outlook and forecast at least 91 LTE networks will be in commercial service by end 2012.”

The report also highlights the momentum behind re-farming spectrum for LTE, particularly at 1800MHz with four networks launched at the frequency and many more in the pipeline, including one from Australian operator Telstra.

The rise of TDD spectrum for use with LTE is also noted, with numerous trials and deployments around the world. Telecoms.com recently spoke at length with Michael Lai, the CEO of Malaysian operator Packet One about its planned TD-LTE roll-out.

The previous report is hosted at Telecoms.com and will be updated with the new report in due course. In the meantime, the new report is available as a free download for registered users from the GSA website.