China Mobile readying TD-LTE for Hong-Kong

China Mobile, the world’s largest mobile operator will launch LTE in Hong Kong on 18 December, according to reports.

Hong Kong is already well served for LTE with all four other operators, Hutchison, PCCW and CSL and CMHK, offering 4G services. The move however, has larger significance in that it indicates that China Mobile is readying a wider TD-LTE–based launch in mainland China.

Details of its deals with Ericsson and ZTE to provide a dual-mode FDD/TDD network were revealed back in July.

At the LTE North America conference, John Saw, CTO of US wholesale network operator Clearwire said that the TD-LTE industry had received a massive boost by China Mobile joining the other Chinese operators in selecting Band 41 as its TD-LTE band of choice. China has allocated the 2500-2690Hz (2.6GHz) and entire 190Mhz spectrum ranges for TD-LTE.

Apple has announced that the iPhone 5 has been approved by China’s Ministry of Industry and Technology and that it will be available on China Unicom and China Telecom.  However, China Mobile has yet to reach an agreement with Apple to make the iPhone officially available on its network.

Analysts are predicting that the iPhone 5 will be available on China Mobile at some point in 2013 pointing towards Apple including a Qualcomm chip in the device that support’s China Mobile’s TD-SCDMA technology. However, no current iPhone 5 SKU supports the TD-LTE standard that China Mobile is currently trialling.

Earlier this week Telecoms.com exclusively revealed that Apple holds the keys to using the iPhone 5 on carries LTE networks and will not allow it to be used until it has conducted its own testing.

The inaugural TD-LTE Summit is taking place on the 23^rd-24^th April 2013 at the Fairmont Singapore Hotel, Singapore. Click here to download a flyer.