China Mobile, the operator spearheading the momentum of TD-LTE, said it plans to begin trials of TD-LTE networks with overseas mobile networks in the next six months.
Wang Jianzhou, chairman of China Mobile, indicated several mobile operators in Asia, Europe and North America have voiced their interest in developing TD-LTE networks.
"We will cooperate with foreign operators to develop scale TD-LTE trial networks in their countries in the second half of this year," the chairman told the China Daily newspaper.
China Mobile is showing off a TD-LTE trial network at the Shanghai World Expo, and it now plans to trial the technology in more Chinese cities going forward.
"In the next six to 12 months, TD-LTE as a technology will be ready for commercialization," said Bill Huang, general manager of China Mobile Research Institute.
Indeed, the development of TD-LTE is moving swiftly. While China Mobile aims to be the first to deploy such a network, Qualcomm is aiming to deploy TD-LTE in the 2.3 GHz band in India--if it wins a license. TD-LTE will have the world's two fastest growing markets, China and India, driving the momentum. Moreover, mobile operators in Europe are sitting on a bunch of vacant TDD spectrum that was attached to their 3G licenses and more TDD spectrum is expected to be released in auctions across the globe.
For more:
- see this China Daily article
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