Close to $3.3 billion will be splurged by wireless operators on LTE (Long Term Evolution) base stations in 2011 alone, which translates to the monetary value of 142,000 base stations, revealed a recent study from ABI Research.

And this spending on LTE base stations is expected to rise further between 2011and the end of 2012.

"Vendors will be shipping base station equipment in significant quantities in 2010 ahead of limited trials that typically last about a year, followed by full commercial launches," said senior analyst Nadine Manjaro.

While many operators are considering re-use of the existing equipment, the option of sharing of masts and cabinets cannot be ruled out, says the research.

"Many operators have been talking about re-use of existing equipment, but ABI Research understands that while there may be sharing of masts and cabinets most of those 142,000 base stations will have completely new baseband and RF components, because operators will generally try to keep the new LTE networks separate from their legacy networks,” added Manjaro.

However, because of LTE’s propagation features and higher frequencies, operators will at last have to deploy extra sites to iron out gaps in coverage, said ABI Research vice president Jake Saunders.

This may prove advantageous for base station equipment vendors, with some of them already served with contracts. Vendors like Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson, and Starent are the winners of a major set of contracts from Verizon Wireless. Huawei has also stepped up its push for LTE-related solution offerings. Nokia Siemens Networks too stands a good opportunity, concludes the research.