China has allocated 210MHz of 4G spectrum to the country’s three mobile carriers for the provision of TD-LTE service, according to a government official.
Speaking at an industry conference in Thailand Tuesday, in conjunction with the ITU Telecom World, Xie Feibo, director at radio regulatory bureau under the Ministry of Industry and Information (MIIT), said the government has allocated 130MHz of TDD spectrum on the 1880-1900MHz, 2320-2370 MHz, and 2575-2635 MHz range to China Mobile for TD-LTE trials.
China Unicom and China Telecom each are allocated 40MHz of TDD spectrum, with the former on the 2300-2320 MHz and 2555-2575 MHz range and the latter on the 2370-2390 MHz and 2635-2655 MHz frequency band.
The Chinese government is also considering to use the 1.4-GHz and 3.5-GHz frequency band for TD-LTE allocation, as well as explore the application of 50-GHz and beyond to meet future demand of mobile broadband, Xie said
Xie’s comment marks the first official announcement about the 4G spectrum allocation for the three mobile operators, the CCID reports.
Although China hasn’t yet issued 4G licenses, the three Chinese mobile carriers are ramping up their 4G rollout efforts.
China Mobile, the major backer for the TD-LTE technology, has already started offering commercial 4G services in some major cities such as Guangzhou and Shenzhen. China Unicom and China Telecom are also building trial 4G networks.
Separately, China Mobile chief executive Li Yue said the company is pushing 4G deployment on a number of fronts, including deploying LTE-Advanced for faster speed, VoLTE and the convergence of FDD and TDD.
He said China Mobile has already built more than 200,000 TD-LTE base stations across the country and procured 1 million 4G devices.
Moving forward, China Mobile plans to introduce commercial VoLTE next year and will also collaborate with vendors and other stakeholders to lower the cost of TD-LTE handsets, Li told audience at the opening of the ITU Telecom World.
“We hope to launch 1000 yuan ($744) TD-LTE handset by year-end and expect they [the 1000 yuan handsets] will become mainstream in the second half of 2014,” Li said.
China Mobile is also working with handset makers to launch its own brand 4G handsets and MIFI, and collaborating on the development of multi-band, multi-mode 4G handsets.