China Mobile joins Verizon, Voda, in LTE tests
15 February 2008
China Mobile joins Verizon, Voda, in LTE tests
China's leading mobile operator, China Mobile, has confirmed plans to trial next generation wireless technology LTE (Long Term Evolution), in a three way partnership with Vodafone and Verizon Wireless.
At the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this week, the Chinese carrier said that the trials would encompass LTE FDD (Frequency Division Duplex) as well as TD-LTE (Time Division Duplex version of LTE), as an evolution of China's home grown TD-SCDMA technology.
China Mobile is expected to be required to deploy TD-SCDMA when 3G licenses are finally awarded in the country, an event many expect to happen prior to the Beijing Olympics which kick off in the summer.
Verizon's interest in LTE has been recognised as something of a coup for the GSM-community, seeing as Verizon's existing network uses rival cdma2000 technology. However, Vodafone has financial interests in both Verizon Wireless and China Mobile.
The Big V operates Verizon Wireless as a joint venture with US outfit Verizon and holds 49 per cent of the company, while its holding in China Mobile extends to 3.3 per cent of the company.
Meanwhile, research released by the UMTS Forum in Barcelona predicted that LTE could generate total revenues of Eur150bn for operators by 2015.
The statistics from Analysys Research forecast that smooth evolution from investments in 3G UMTS will kick start a new wave of high speed interactive services, strengthening ARPU in many mobile markets.
Analysys predicts that subscriptions to LTE will exceed 400 million by 2015 - double the number of today's WCDMA/HSPA customers.
Furthermore, revenues from LTE will represent more than 15 per cent of all mobile revenues that are predicted to approach Eur1tn globally in 2015, the analyst said.
While non-voice services currently represent just 10-15 per cent of revenues in developed markets, the study suggests that LTE could drive this proportion to 36 per cent by 2015.
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