More than a dozen new networks are poised to go live this year, and spending on LTE (Long Term Evolution) is expected to exceed WiMAX equipment spending by the end of 2011, according to new research from (IDC).

The firm expects worldwide LTE infrastructure revenues to fall just below $8bn by 2014. The commitment level to LTE is high with more than 100 operators publicly supporting it, including nine of the ten largest mobile operators worldwide.

Despite bright outlook, LTE is not without its challenges, due to spectrum regimes remaining unclear in many markets around the world and varying levels of commitment among operators which must considered individually, IDC said.

However, IDC said that the ability of LTE to reduce data delivery costs is fundamentally driving the technology forward. It points that the need for technology and operational offerings that lower costs is critical to the future competitiveness of a mobile operator as the data traffic is outpacing revenues.

According to IDC, in 2010, all LTE vendors including the likes of Motorola, NEC, and Fujitsu, are increasing their go-to-market efforts, further amplifying competitive pressures. The LTE equipment race is experiencing a land grab between incumbent 3G market leader Ericsson and the fast rising Huawei, while Nokia Siemens and Alcatel Lucent work hard to remain relevant.

The iconic smartphone devices, coupled with growing mobile broadband laptop use, will continue to drive the explosion in mobile data traffic. LTE is making capacity support/offload, a complementary technology in the near term, by providing it for 3G networks.

Godfrey Chua, research manager of wireless and mobile infrastructure at IDC, said: The world is coalescing around the LTE standard as a result of its promise to increase speed and capacity to address the exploding growth in mobile data traffic.

“LTE is an important part of the portfolio of technology solutions that will enable mobile operators to cost-effectively deliver more innovative and robust data applications and services over the mobile network.