Beancounters working for Juniper Research have been adding up the numbers and dividing by their shoe size and worked out that the worldwide service revenues generated by LTE mobile networks will grow like Topsy.

Onc networks are launched, says Juniper, they will exceed $265 billion by 2016. Whilst the total number of LTE consumer subscribers will be higher than enterprise in 2016, it is a different picture from a revenues viewpoint, with the consumer segment accounting for under half of total revenues.

What will push the technology is the introduction of premium service tariffs to provide high end  enterprise users with required guaranteed connections and/or service levels. The new 4G LTE Strategies Report found that early LTE adopters will be "top end" users who are currently in the higher echelons of monthly spend. Report author Nitin Bhas said that the trend will be seen in developing countries as much as in developed countries.

He believe sthat high end enterprise users in developing countries will be much closer in spend to similar users in North America or Western Europe and certainly distinct from the bulk of the population that contribute towards the high level regional ARPU levels for all generations, including 2G.