GTI Latin America Seminar, jointly organized by GTI and China Mobile, was held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil on Oct 21, 2013. Senior executives from 15 operators, including Brazil\'s TIM, DirecTV/SKY and On Telecom, Japa\'s SoftBank and the UK\'s UKB, and representatives from more than 20 vendors such as Huawei, ZTE, NSN and Ericsson, totally about 100 people, attended this seminar.

GTI major operator, China Mobile, also took this opportunity through face to face communication with main operators in Latin America to jointly promote the development and cooperation in TD-LTE. Latin America has approximate 600 million people. It is one of the fastest growing markets of mobile communication in recent years with a penetration rate of 114 percent. So far, commercial 4G networks have been deployed in six countries including Brazil, Mexico, Paraguay, etc. Brazil\'s operators Sky and On Telecom have deployed commercial TD-LTE networks. Besides, Chile, Argentina, Venezuela, Peru and Ecuador have planned to launch 4G service in the near future. With fast economic growth and development of 4G, Latin America is recognized as one of the most important potential markets for TD-LTE. As GTI\'s debut in Latin America, this seminar is aiming to share the latest progresses and international market of TD-LTE, and discuss key issues about its deployment with the major Latin America operators. This seminar will definitely strengthen the confidence of Latin America market, and further drive the commercial deployment of TD-LTE globally.

Mr Li Zhengmao, executive vice-president of China Mobile, gave a brief introduction on behalf of the company and GTI Steering Committee on the converged LTE TDD/FDD development and the global deployment of TD-LTE. According to Mr Li, the convergence of LTE FDD/TDD brings unprecedented opportunities for not only the booming development of mobile Internet, but also the operators and entire industry chain. GTI expects to establish closer partnerships with Latin American operators to promote the development of TD-LTE through GTI platform and build a wonderful world of 4G.

Senior executives from other operators also gave keynote speeches at the seminar. The senior executives from Brazil\'s Sky, On Telecom and SoftBank introduced their commercial use of TD-LTE and shared deployment experience. Representatives from UKB presented the development and commercial use of 3.5GHz LTE and the representative of Azerbaijan’s Azqtel shared their experience in migration from WiMAX to TD-LTE. These speeches further firmed attendees\' confidence in the global development of TD-LTE and exerted a positive influence on the large-scale commercial deployment of TD-LTE in Latin America.

GTI, since its establishment in 2011, has become an international cooperation platform comprised of 71 operator members and 61 industrial partners throughout the industry chain worldwide. It has received great support from traditional industries of FDD, TD-SCDMA, WiMAX and PHS, and has also established strategic partnerships with GSMA and NGMN.

With this cooperation platform, GTI operators and industrial partners have set up four work groups for networks, terminals, business & service applications and spectrum, and one 3.5GHz interest group to facilitate TD-LTE eco-system development. GTI has commercially launched TD-LTE 5-mode-12-bands device and released several whitepapers with respect to network, multi-mode-multi-band, spectrum and consumer electronics.

Currently, with joint effort of GTI and whole industry, 21 commercial TD-LTE networks have been launched around the globe. Another 41 commercial networks are being constructed or in the pipeline.