Source: Barclays
The story is clearly different in the US, however, where both AT&T and Verizon Wireless are increasing spending materially this year. Verizon Wireless is only lifting capex by 5% despite embarking on its upgrade from CDMA EV-DO to LTE, indicating that the increase in the latter is coming as further declines are made in the former’s budget. Given the CDMA migration path ends at EV-DO, Verizon has no choice but to begin its shift to LTE sooner than the GSM/WCDMA camp. For AT&T, its much publicised increase in capex (we estimate +27% y/y) is focused on backhaul and core (RNC) spending. It is increasing the number of base station sites only marginally, by roughly 2k.
