With the success of previous 6 workshops, the 7th TDD Spectrum Workshop (TDD Spectrum and 5G Technology Workshop) was successfully held on the afternoon of Sep. 25 in Busan, Republic of Korea during ITU Telecom World 2017.

Jointly hosted by International Telecommunications Union (ITU), GTI, China Mobile and Telecommunication Development Industry Alliance (TDIA), this workshop aims to promote the evolution and a wider development space for TD-LTE, and push forward the global unified planning of TDD spectrum and the future spectrum strategies.

Mr. Zhao Houlin, Secretary-General of ITU addressed in his opening speech, that 5G will bring much faster data speeds, reliable connectivity and low latency to international mobile telecommunications. As the Internet of Things era gathers pace with an array of innovative solutions, better health care, smarter cities, vastly more efficient manufacturing are all being made possible. But none of these things can reach their full potential without 5G networks. He stressed that TDD will play a more important role in 5G era, with its adoption in the development and research of 5G technologies, such as Massive MIMO, Ultra Dense Network, Pattern Division Multiple Access, High Frequency communication technology, etc.

Mr. Chen Lidong, Deputy Director of Communication Development Department of MIIT made an opening speech. He addressed that recent years have witnessed 4G’s rapid development and 5G’s impressive progress in China. He put forward 3 suggestions to the industry. The first is to speed up the formulation of the global unified 5G standard. The second is to accelerate 5G spectrum research and coordination. The third is to promote 5G R&D and testing. The fourth is to facilitate and cultivate more and more 5G-based cross industry innovations.

Ms. Huang Yuhong, Deputy Manager of China Mobile Research Institute made a keynote speech on From Vision to Reality, TDD Accelerates 5G Development. At first, she shared the latest progress in China Mobile’s 4G TD-LTE network. As of the end of July, 2017, China Mobile has built over 1.68 million base stations and has acquired 606 million subscribers. She said that the success of TD-LTE has laid a solid foundation for 5G. “TDD will be a bigger player in 5G era. With its unique advantages such as better support for large bandwidth, Massive-MIMO, TDD will be the primary choice when new spectrum with more than 2GHz bandwidth is being allocated.” On the road from 4G to 5G, she said, China Mobile would like to collaborate with all industry partners to work for New Technologies such as Massive-MIMO, HPUE, NFV/SDN, Big Data and AI; New Network including M-IoT, 5G and NovoNet; and New Ecosystem with platforms such as GTI and China Mobile 5G Innovation Center.

Mr. YongGyoo Lee, SVP of Network Strategy Business Unit of KT shared spectrum plan for 5G in Korea, which is to release 300MHz in 3.4-3.7GHz and 1GHz in 27.5-28.5GHz in 2018. He also brought KT’s tentative 5G roadmap, addressing that after guaranteeing PyeongChang Winter Olympics with KT’s pre-commercial network in 2018, it will provide the world’s first 5G commercialization based on standardization schedule of 3GPP.

Mr. Joe Guan, Head of Policy of Greater China of the GSMA made a speech on Sustainable Policies for 5G. He introduced GSMA’s key findings from a survey of CEOs from global operators. According to this survey, enterprises are considered the most important source of new operator revenues for 5G by almost 70% of the CEOs surveyed.

Mr. Hakan Ohlsen, Spectrum Group Coordinater for APT of GSA made a deep analysis on early availability of spectrum for 5G. He gave a whole picture of recent trail activities globally in different bands, concluding that many trials ongoing & planned around the world mainly in 3.5 GHz, 4.5 GHz and 28 GHz.

Besides all the spectacular speeches above, delegates from regulators, organizations, and industry partners also shared the latest progress in TD-LTE global commercialization and evolution, 5G development and strategies, and 5G spectrum planning and regulations, etc. A consensus has also formed in this workshop that TDD spectrum will play a more important role in 5G era.