The original specification of the LTE standard states theoretical downlink peak rates of 300Mbps and uplink peak rates of 75Mbps, although it concedes that these speeds are likely to be achievable only under ideal propagation conditions. Real-world speeds generally fall below this rate and show typically around 15Mbps for the download link and uplink speeds of between 2 and 5 Mbps.

This is because transmission speeds are significantly impacted by a variety of factors including: geography, topology, distance from the LTE base station mast, the number of users on the network and the capabilities of the end user’s device. As in the Professional Mobile Radio (PMR) market, another key factor is the limited amount of spectrum available.

Nonetheless, as far as end users are concerned LTE networks do provide considerably faster data speeds than 3G. LTE base stations can also support up to four times the data and voice capacity of 3G cells. When using the media services of today’s commercially available products, like video streaming, this will be much more convenient and efficient using LTE.