Though China has been leading research and development of TD-LTE networks, a top government official said the country will wait two to three more years before it issues licenses for commercial services. Because China wants to roll out TD-LTE by upgrading existing base stations that use its homegrown TD-SCDMA standard, the government will not offer TD-LTE licenses until operators have doubled the number of TD-SCDMA base stations deployed from the current 220,000 to 400,000. China also wants to give vendors ample time to develop handsets that are compatible with TD-LTE networks before issuing licenses. The nation's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology is actively encouraging handset and chip vendors to get on the TD-LTE bandwagon. Check out this article for more on China's TD-LTE plans.