China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) on December 4 announced the release of TD-LTE (Time Division-Long Term Evolution) licenses to China Mobile, Chine Telecom and China United Network Communications (China Unicom).
China Mobile has adopted TD-LTE as a sole 4G standard, while China Telecom and China Unicom will focus 4G on FDD (Frequency Division Duplexing) LTE with TD-LTE as an auxiliary standard. China Telecom plans to have FDD LTE/TD LTE at a proportion of 7:3 in infrastructure capacity, while the proportion for China Unicom is 8:2.
China Mobile has set up TD-LTE networks in about 300 cities around China. China Mobile has procured more than one million TD-LTE terminal devices in 2013 and is in preparation to start contract-bundled sale of TD-LTE-enabled iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c. China Mobile plans to offer own-brand TD-LTE terminal devices for sale at below CNY1,000 (US$164) in the China market around the end of 2014.
According to China Mobile, there were 23 TD-LTE networks in commercial operation in 18 countries as of mid-October 2013 and more than 40 other networks are being planned.
