## 1 Introduction
Some of the major advantages of this technology include faster mobile data, more bandwidth, much less latency, better management of data traffic, high-level video streaming, Voice over LTE (VoLTE), Video over LTE (ViLTE), entry to vertical markets (e.g., public safety, health and transportation), low legacy cost due to more integrability with fifth-generation networks (5G), network's better efficiency, cell broadcast, and lots of value-added services. * _Inability to compete with OTT technologies:_ Because LTE operators can provide better quality services than OTT technologies, such as VoLTE versus Voice over Internet Protocol (VOIP) offered by WhatsApp or ViLTE compared to the video over the Internet protocol provided by Skype. * _Loss of many revenue opportunities:_ The revenue generated by LTE is forecast to be $ 350 billion by 2020 [8]. Considering that Iran is 1.08% of the world's population, its share of this amount can be equal to 3.780 billion. So, if the fourth generation is not well understood, Iranian operators will lose that income share.
* _Prolongation of payback period:_ If operators' subscribers migrate slowly from 3G to 4G, this can prolong the payback period of the 4G network and create many costs for operators.
* _The lack of integrability with fifth-generation networks (5G) and the loss of many IoT opportunities:_ IoT is recognized to have a tremendous effect over the ICT industry in the near future. The Forbes Media Company forecasts that the IoT revenue share will be $ 14.4 trillion by 2022. Of this, $ 2.5 trillion has been spent on improving employees' productivity, another 2.5 trillion in reducing costs, 2.7 trillion in improving logistics and supply chains, 3 trillion in reducing market entry time, and 3.7 trillion in improving the customers' experience [9]. 5G plays a pivotal role in realizing the IoT and utilizing its capacities. 4G technologies, in particular, LTE-Advanced Pro technology, have a high potential to integrate with 5G in comparison to other cellular technologies. With this technology, operators can get integrated with 5G networks without getting stuck at a huge legacy cost. Therefore, if the operators only stay on 3G networks, huge costs will be imposed on them to migrate to 5G networks, and they will lose huge opportunities. Therefore, it is important for managers of Iranian operators to know by which scenarios they can encourage non-4G subscribers to switch to fourth-generation technologies. For such scenarios, they should know the mechanism underlying the diffusion of three competing MTTs (i.e., 2G, 3G, and 4G) in the country. This study is primarily aimed at discovering this mechanism. The rest of this paper is organized as follows: The second section covers the literature review where various types of studies are discussed, and their limitations are explained. The third section ideals with materials and methods where agent-based modeling (ABM) is discussed in a step-by-step way. In the fourth section, the results are presented through model evaluation in which both verification and verification are clearly discussed. In the fifth section, a discussion of the model's outputs is presented, and finally a conclusion is elaborated as the sixth section.