TD-LTE protocol gains momentum: China Mobile, Qualcomm push technology acceptance

SHENZHEN, China—While Chinese operators are still working to get more subscribers onto their 3G networks, the world’s largest operator, China Mobile Communications Co. Ltd., is trialing a fourth-generation technology called TD-LTE. Once dismissed as an unlikely 4G choice, two recent events are giving the protocol some momentum.

With more than 500 million subscribers, China Mobile’s enthusiasm to test TD-LTE has forced equipment manufacturers to commit to building products to the standard because there is simply too much potential to ignore the market segment. Further, chip company Qualcomm Inc. is planning to bid in India’s upcoming broadband wireless access licenses with a local Indian partner. If the Qualcomm venture won a 2.3 GHz license, it would deploy a TD-LTE network, giving more credence to the technology.

At ZTE Corp.’s Global Analyst Conference here last week, company executives said there are global opportunities for the technology because there is unpaired spectrum available in many regions that would be well-suited to the technology, including Europe.

The recent hype behind TD-LTE is making WiMAX proponents nervous, said Tony Brown, senior analyst at Informa, during a TD-LTE panel at the conference. WiMAX enthusiasts “view TD-LTE as the bogeyman,” Brown said. Indeed, the BWA auction in India for 2.3 GHz licenses, has been a given for WiMAX deployment up until Qualcomm’s announcement to bid for the spectrum.

The FDD bands, which require paired spectrum, are overcrowded, said ZTE’s Ming Liang, marketing director of ZTE’s TDD product line. TD-LTE can use 2.3-2.4 GHz bands, the 2.5-2.6 GHz bands as well as the 2.9 GHz band, he noted. ZTE plans to have equipment available to support the 2.9 GHz band next year, Liang said. The 3GPP standards body is working to incorporate TD-LTE at 2.6 GHz. There is speculation that WiMAX operator Clearwire could use TD-LTE technology at some point, although for now, Clearwire has said it is using WiMAX technology for its go-to-market strategy.

China Mobile is conducting TD-LTE testing in three cities –Quingdao, Nanjing and Xiamen. The operator is testing indoor coverage, seamless handovers and interoperability testing for chip vendors. Chip vendors are testing a dual-mode TD-LTE and FDD-LTE cards for interoperability today, and in the third quarter, field testing should be conducted with commercial versions available in the first quarter of 2011, Liang said. Like other new protocols, dongles will be the first available devices, but Liang said Qualcomm’s roadmap calls for embedded devices in 2012.

If China Mobile pushes forward with a TD-LTE deployments soon, that could spur deployments around the rest of the globe because a healthy ecosystem of equipment providers will already be in place, said Dr. Xiaodong Zhu, CTO of ZTE’s Europe marketing platform. A combined TD-LTE and FDD-LTE solutions will simplify the technology roadmap, Zhu said. ZTE contends it unified RAN solutions will help operators because they can switch out technologies easily. ZTE, which has WiMAX deployments around the world, said a WiMAX operator may want to deploy that technology initially, and change to TD-LTE if and when it makes sense to do so. The decisions will vary operator by operator, Liang said.