The latest research from Strategy Analytics suggests a nine-fold increase in 4G LTE connections this year, with 90 million connections worldwide by the end of 2012. This new mobile technology is expected to exceed one billion connections by early 2017, just over seven years since it was first introduced. It’s a faster growth rate than the company predicted just a couple of months ago.

LTE’s speedy growth is expected to surpass that of previous mobile technologies. GSM took 12 years to reach one billion connections and WCDMA is expected to take nearly 11 years.

Phil Kendall, Director of the Strategy Analytics Wireless Operator Strategies service, said “It has taken some time to warm up, but operator sentiment toward LTE has improved significantly over the last year. The LTE smartphone market is providing this sudden lift, with LTE’s medium-term potential boosted by the much greater scale in today’s mobile market: WCDMA launched into a world of fewer than one billion mobile connections, whereas we have over six billion connections today.”

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