It has been a long time coming for China Telecom and China Unicom. The pair has been trailing behind a larger rival, China Mobile (News - Alert), in part because the country's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology had not yet awarded them FDD-based 4G licenses. A news report at Telecoms.com last week, however, noted that the Ministry had finally provided them with the licenses that will allow them to deploy FDD-LTE (News - Alert) technology.
The three national telecoms were awarded similar licenses – for TD-LTE technology – at the end of last year, and China Mobile has been expanding on that with its 3G, TD-SCDMA LTE service. China Telecom and China Unicom (News - Alert), though, reportedly wanted something better because, as Telecoms reports, they pressured the Ministry to allow them to use FDD-LTE technology to help them compete.
The mobile carriers have received their licenses, but for all the hype, there may be a catch. Both companies reportedly must use the licenses, at least to start, "to trial FDD-TDD LTE integration in 16 cities around the country." Apparently their usage will be limited to some extent.
China Telecom is said to be working on 4G deployment with Alcatel-Lucent (News - Alert), the telecommunications equipment company, which announced late last year that it would supply technology for the 4G infrastructure.
China Mobile is leading the way, though, with 4G deployment. It has reportedly been working with local suppliers Huawei and ZTE and global enterprises Ericsson, Alcatel-Lucent, and Nokia.
TMC (News - Alert) reported last year that China Mobile had partnered with Huawei to complete an international VoLTE trial between Chengdu and Hangzhou and a South Korea LTE network. The groups made several voice and video calls between the two organizations, and China Mobile reportedly expects VoLTE to be commercially viable by the end of this year.
Last year's TMC report concerning 4G infrastructure states that the Chinese market is now the world's largest concerning the number of subscribers and the amount of mobile data services and smartphones they use. In addition, the market is growing at more than 50 percent year over year.
Edited by Alisen Downey