The TD-LTE Technology and Spectrum Workshop at ITU Telecom World 2012 took place in Dubai on October 14th, 2012. This workshop was jointly hosted by ITU, China Mobile, GTI and the TD Industry Alliance (TDIA), aiming to convene industry players to discuss the development trend of TD-LTE and spectrum-related issues and share experience on the commercialization of TD-LTE. Mr. Zhao Houlin, Deputy Secretary of ITU, Mr. Liu Lihua, Deputy Secretary of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of China (MIIT), Mr. Zhao Jibin, Vice President of China Mobile, leaders from national telecom authorities, as well as senior managements from China Mobile, SoftBank, Clearwire, UK Broadband attended this workshop. 

 The government of China officially announced its 2.6GHz TDD spectrum planning at the workshop. Mr. Liu Lihua stated, “The government of China attaches great importance to the research and development as well as the commercialization of the new-generation broadband mobile communication technology, and has provided active support for industrial initiatives, such as technological tests, to advance the industry development. As one of the mainstream evolution standards, TD-LTE has great edge in spectrum utilization, and receives widespread recognition from global operators and device manufacturers.” Mr. Xie Cun, Deputy Director of Radio Regulatory Bureau, MIIT introduced the planning and progress of the frequency resources of China’s new-generation mobile broadband technology. According to him, China has decided to allocate 2.6GHz frequency band ranging from 2500-2690Hz and the entire band of 190MHz for the deployment and application of TD-LTE technology.

Such an announcement at the most authoritative meeting offered great confidence in the development of TD-LTE to the global industry and market, and helped point out the way for other nations that were going to plan and allocate frequency resources of mobile broadband in the near future.

Mr. Zhao Jibin, Vice President of China Mobile, pointed out at his speech, "China Mobile has always been committed to advancing the integration of LTE TDD/FDD. Joining forces with GTI, global operators and industry players, China Mobile has promoted the maturity and commercialization of TD-LTE. China Mobile has accomplished the TD-LTE large-scale trial this year and initiated the expanded large-scale trial across 13 cities in China. 20,000 TD-LTE base stations will be built up by the end of 2012. Equipment purchase and network construction across 100 cities in China, covering about 200,000 base stations, will be launched in 2013. Besides, China Mobile Hong Kong will roll out a commercial TD-LTE network to provide users with high-efficiency mobile broadband service based on the integration of LTE TDD/FDD."

Representatives from GTI and TDIA gave keynote speeches on the global deployment of TD-LTE, as well as the development of the TDD industry in the mobile broadband era. As the representative from GTI mentioned, “GTI achieved rapid growth over the past year, having not only set up an important international cooperation platform composed of 50 operators and 37 industrial partners in the world, but also implemented dozen of GTI task forces under the categories of network, terminal, business and service working groups. These helped with the resolution of key problems in the commercialization to a very large extent and accelerated the maturity of TD-LTE. In the future, China Mobile will join force with GTI operators and industrial partners to advance the global deployment and development of TD-LTE. GTI will adopt more efficient strategic tactics to promote the development of highly-integrated, multi-mode multi-band terminals (such as Multi-Mode Multi-Band MiFi), help expand TD-LTE devices into consumer electronics, set up new pattern of global data roaming, and advance the convergence of LTE TDD/FDD. These measures will help address the requirements of the global mobile Internet market.

In addition, globally leading TDD operators, including SoftBank, ClearWire, UK Broadband and P1, shared their experiences in the large-scale deployment and commercialization of TD-LTE and gave suggestions on spectrum planning and allocation at the workshop.

Under the promotion and support of GTI, totally 12 commercial TD-LTE networks have been launched globally; 24 global operators have signed contracts for 31 devices, and more than 29 global operators have announced their TD-LTE commercialization plans.

Source: Global TD-LTE Initiative - GTI