China to speed up TD-LTE development

SHANGHAI - China will speed up the development of TD-LTE, the nation's fourth-generation (4G) telecommunications technology, during the next two years, an official with the country's top economic planning agency said Wednesday.

China will strengthen its research and development on TD-LTE chips, terminals and test instruments, expand the TD-LTE trial scale, speed up the commercial use of TD-LTE and promote the globalization of the technology, Zhang Xiaoqiang, deputy minister in charge of the National Development and Reform Commission, said at the Mobile Asia Expo in Shanghai.

TD-LTE, or "Time Division-Long Term Evolution," can substantially lower bandwidth costs and allow faster broadband wireless services than the current 3G network.

The technology and Europe's FDD-LTE are the two major 4G standards set by the International Telecommunication Union. FDD-LTE has already been put into commercial use, accounting for four-fifths of the global LTE market.

As China's self-developed 3G TD-SCDMA standard has missed the opportunity to see large-scale application outside the country, China hopes that the TD-LTE technology can become a globally accepted standard.

"The next two years will be a golden time for the development of TD-LTE. We cannot afford to miss it, or we may not have such an opportunity again," Zhang said.

China Mobile, the operator of the 4G technology, has started offering TD-LTE services in the cities of Beijing, Nanjing, Hangzhou, Shenzhen and Guangzhou. The company plans to build over 20,000 base stations in 10 cities this year.