Smartphones to overtake PCs in LTE by 2014

And there will be 592m LTE subs by 2016.

And new report by Research and Markets - “LTE Devices and Applications - Next-Generation Mobile Networks Driven By Video Services” - confirms that LTE (also known as 4G) has emerged as the next-gen network standard of choice and overtook WiMAX in terms of subscriptions in 2011.

It also says the range of LTE devices increased elevenfold in the past year.

PC access to LTE will dominate to 2014 as operators use the standard for broadband dongles. These subscriptions represent around 80 per cent of all mobile data traffic, even though they account for fewer than four per cent of mobile subscriptions.

However, after this time, SIM card access will prevail.

Other report stats include:

* 35 mobile operators have launched commercial LTE networks,
* 197 devices have become available
* Three out of five device models are discrete modems, either routers or PC add-on devices