The’ 4G LTE Strategies Report’ from Juniper Research states that worldwide service revenues generated by LTE mobile networks are forecast to grow rapidly and surpass $265bn by 2016, once networks are launched.

While the total number of LTE consumer subscribers will be higher than enterprise in 2016, the enterprise revenues would be more than half of total revenues.

The key driver identified for obtaining incremental revenues for LTE was the introduction of premium service tariffs to provide high end enterprise users with adequate guaranteed connections and service levels, the research firm says.

The report found that early LTE adopters will be "top end" users who are currently in the higher strata of monthly spending. This will be the case in developing countries as much as in developed countries. Nitin Bhas report author said they believed that high end enterprise users in developing countries will be much closer in spend to similar users in North America or Western Europe and certainly very distinct from the bulk of the population that contributes towards the high level regional ARPU levels for all generations, including 2G.

Juniper Research examines the LTE revenue opportunity, by measuring four service pricing scenarios and three business models based on service usage. High traffic subscribers using video, web and email services will be the critical early adopter segment to benefit from LTE. All backdrops provided the scope to generate incremental revenues and ARPU.

Juniper’s LTE enterprise ARPU is forecast to experience lower rate of decline than consumer ARPU; Western Europe, North America and Far East & China will account for approximately 84% of total revenue worldwide by 2016; and LTE service revenue to represent over 26% of total service revenues from all mobile services across all generations by 2016.