Next generation mobile tech gains Asia momentum

10.01.2011
The next generation mobile network technology TD-LTE is gaining traction in Asia-Pacific and is expected to be rolled out soon in several other countries outside China and India.

This is according to a new report 'LTE in Asia-Pacific: The Current Situation' from global research firm Ovum, part of the Datamonitor Group. Ovum says Polish mobile broadband operator Aero2 is due to turn on the world's first commercial TD-LTE system in early 2011.

Long-term evolution (LTE) is the newest mobile technology standard following on from GSM/EDGE and UMTS/HSxPA. It is developed by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), and trademarked by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute, one of the associations within the partnership,

Time Division Duplexing (TDD) is a transmission method that uses the same channel for the uplink and downlink (transmit and receive), but separates them by time slots. Frequency Division Duplexing (FDD) uses separate channels for the uplink and downlink.

Ovum says while FDD LTE services were debuted in the Asia Pacific in late 2010, by Hong Kong's CSL and Japan's NTT DoCoMo, there has also been significant interest in TD-LTE outside of China.