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April 25, 2012

China Mobile and Nokia Siemens Partner to Test TD-LTE 4G Network

China Mobile Limited is a Chinese state-owned telecommunications company that provides mobile voice and multimedia services through its nationwide mobile telecommunications network. The company, listed on both the New York Stock Exchange and the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, claims it is the world’s largest mobile phone operator with over 650 million subscribers.

China Mobile Limited has been working with Nokia Siemens Networks to help commercialize and market TD-LTE network, which would officially be the first 4G network in China. The company said that over 20,000 TD-LTE base stations would be in operation by the end of this year, growing to 200,000 by the end of next year.

This announcement is monumental as it will be offering consumers the ability to use some of the latest smartphone technology that wasn’t previously available. The iPhone, for example, is not currently available on the current network due to incompatibilities; however an LTE-capable iPhone would be supported on the new TD-LTE network.

But in light of software issues, none of the devices have been able to be legally run through a cell network.

Nokia Siemens Network posted the announcement of the new network on its blog, saying the company is happy to be moving forward with China Mobile after the extensive testing process.

“China Mobile needed a partner that had the skill and solutions to truly deliver a superior broadband experience for its subscribers – a 4G experience,” the company said. “We were evaluated with other vendors and we are proud that China Mobile selected Nokia Siemens Networks.”

Nokia confirmed the network would be the only vendor to provide the new TD-LTE network has been released in beta form to two major cities. Nokia said that both cities had some of the highest pass rates. “We are getting unprecedented results from our field tests of mobile broadband throughput as well as latencies. Our field tests top peak throughputs beyond 100Mbps,” said Nokia.

This means that thousands of subscribers will be able to get up to 100Mbps of content downloaded per second at the same time. This is a major improvement, showing increased usage over the next five to 10 years.

China Mobile added that it plans on expanding the trial to more countries throughout the world, “We are very excited to share the insights of large scale field trial of the TD-LTE Technology – First 4G Field Trial Network of China and many other countries.”




Edited by Braden Becker


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