A report from Unstrung reveals major technical issues that global operators Orange and T-Mobile believe need to be resolved before LTE can be commercially viable, suggesting the two companies are not anticipating their own deployment of the technology in the short- to medium-term. The report cites the following as primary LTE concerns for the two operators: support for voice services, the impact on backhaul capacity, intellectual property rights, the lack of standardisation for self-organising networks, and the lack of spectrum.

Neither Orange nor T-Mobile have yet confirmed targeted launch dates for LTE networks, and they are likely to lag LTE pioneers NTT DoCoMo and Verizon Wireless, both of whom plan commercial launch next year. The challenges outlined above have not diluted analyst expectations for the next-generation technology, however; a new report from Pyramid Research predicts that the number of LTE subscribers worldwide will grow at a CAGR of 404 percent from 2010 to 2014, a pace faster than any previous mobile standard (including 3G).