1、China Telecom Reveals Its 4G Route“ China Telecom has begun to make plans for its 4G network， ” said Wang Xiaochu， board chairman of China Telecom in the “2013 E-Surfing Mobile Phone Trade Fair” on June 21. This resurfaced the issuance of 4G license which has been talked about for long. It was the f
2、irst time ever China Telecom promised to send 4G signal in a public situation. Wang Xiaochu also said： “The frequency is the core resource that limits the operators. In the age of 4G， the convergence of networks is inevitable.” In China Telecoms 4G plan， the 4G network with great coverage and big ra
3、nge is to use the FDD formation， while the TDD formation is going to be used in the downtown areas with dense population to absorb the extra traffic. “Driven by the demand and technologies， the whole industry is going to be upgraded， which provides more opportunities. China Telecom is going to work
4、with its partners in the industrial chain to promote the industrial upgrade and we hope that the CDMA industrial chain can smoothly be moved to the 4G network， ” said Wang Xiaochu. The experts said that China Telecoms new attitudes towards the devel- opment of 4G network might signify the accelerati
5、on of the 4G card issuance. The three telecom operators in China might get the TD-LTE license this October and are even likely to get the FDD license later. Meanwhile， when China Telecom made the choice， the industrial pattern of 4G has become very clear ? China Mobile will focus on TD-LTE while Chi
6、na Unicom and China Telecom will focus on FDD-LTE. Two Simultaneous Routes Different from the other operators which have revealed their development path in 4G long before， China Telecom seems to be hesitant in the 4G development. Its attitude is an important factor to decide which one is the better
7、player in Chinas telecom industry. Therefore its choice was placed under heavy scrutiny in the industry. The earliest experiment of 4G made by China Telecom started dur-ing the 2010 Shanghai World Expo. It built a FDD-LTE network based on the frequency range of 2.1GHz. From then on， China Telecom st
8、arted the LTE experiments in Guangdong and Jiangsu， which were all based on FDD-LTE. In an exhibition in June 2012， China Telecom displayed the“Blue Polar Light” program， which was a result of its efforts in 4G LTE. This March， Wang Xiaochu said in Hong Kong that China Telecom would rather get the F
9、DD license and would rent China Mobiles TD-LTE network if given the license of TDLTE. But Wang Xiaochus speech in this June also showed that China Telecom planned to develop its own TDLTE network as well. China Telecoms favor of FDD LTE is easy to explain： it is more popular and widely used in the w
10、orld， has a more improved industrial chain and needs less investment in the network. However， TD-LTE is the 4G standard whose intellectual property belongs to China， therefore it can earn more support from the government. Thats the disadvantage of FDD. When the government claimed the necessity of TD
11、-LTE， the convergence of different networks， which definitely costs more， is a good idea at this moment. For China Telecom， only choosing FDD will cause the problem of scarce frequency ranges， but choosing TDD might make it face the problem of scarce terminals. This is alos a problem for China Mobil
12、e as well. Wang Xiaochus speech hinted that China Telecom is very likely to get the license of TD and FDD simultaneously. It is said that the issuance of 4G license will favor the TD-LTE， which means that the three operators will then get the license of TD-LTE， but they are also given the choice to
13、use FDD or not， in spite of the late appearance of the latter. In the Asian Mobile Communication Expo at the end of June， Lu Yimin， general manager of China Unicom， said that China Unicom is experimenting on the convergence of networks of FDD LTE and TD-LTE. Different from China Telecom， China Unico
14、m got better results from upgrading its current WCDMA network to FDD LTE. For this， the outsiders believed that China Unicom is not going to build a new TD-LTE network massively. For China Mobile， which is busy recruiting TD-LTE base stations， has already realized the commercial operation of TD/FDD
15、convergence in Hong Kong. The Acceleration in Disposition In the E-Surfing Mobile Phone Trade Fair， Liu Ping， general manager of China Telecoms marketing department， revealed more details about China Telecoms 4G network plan. As for the choice of terminals， China Telecoms strategy centers on mobile
16、phones， data terminals， and SIM cards. As introduced， China Telecom is going to launch the FDD pattern to deploy four networks of CDMA， WCDMA， GSM and FDD LTE that cover nine frequency channels. The data terminals include data cards， MIFI and CPE， which feature the combination of TDD+WIFI and TDD+FD
17、D+WIFI. As for the SIM card， the new card will support LTE and NFC. The planning of China Telecom about terminals will show that the FDD LTE will play a more important role in China Telecoms 4G strategy. The construction of LTE network started from China Telecoms pilot 4G base stations in Shanghai，
18、Nanjing and Guangdong. Before May 17， 2013， China Telecom was reported to have opened its first 4G network for the commercial use in Nanjing even though it was only a pilot project. China Telecom wants the bidding for core network to be finished before the end of this August and all devices to be pu
19、rchased in the following month， so that it could get access to the network in November. China Telecoms grand plan to deploy in the 4G market from the network distribution to the terminal choice reflects its great ambition in that field. In this trade fair， China Telecoms partners Huawei， Qualcomm an
20、d TCL also displayed the 4G technologies and products. Huawei built a 4G network for China Telecom for showcase and displayed an entire group of LTE terminals， such as mobile phones， pads， data cards and Internet gateways. In the exhibition stage of China Telecom， the audience can see and feel the d
21、ifference that is brought by China Telecoms 4G network. The Traffic as the Key No matter it is whether FDD or TD were chosen， the biggest advantage of LTE network is none other the traffic of the data. The 4G network means faster mobile Internet and higher mobile bandwidth. As shown by the statistic
22、al data， the bandwidth of wireless broadband in the time of LTE is 150s as high as in the 2G time， or tenfold of the 3G period. As forecasted by GSMA， the total traffic of mobile data in the world will increase with the 50% compound growth rate from 2012 to 2018， and in 2018， it will be 11 times hig
23、her than in 2012. The development speed is even higher in China. In 2011， the total mobile data traffic in China hit 577 million Gb and is expected to reach 1.413 billion Gb by 2013， which wil bring a new business growth point for telecom operators. The drastic increase in data traffic is both a cha
24、llenge and an opportunity for operators. The impact of OTT of Internet is more and more obvious， bringing the industrial value gradually from channels to contents， from communication network to Internet， from voice service to information service. With the high-speed mobile broadband， the mobile Inte
25、rnets new applications will bring more stress to telecom operators， forcing them to embark on the way of transformation as quickly as possible. In order to deal with this challenge and grab the opportunity， China Telecom put forward the working ideas of driving the development of 4G with both leadin
26、g innovations and services and focuses on the size and the traffic. The effect could be seen by now as the 2012 financial report showed that the income from mobile data business amounted to RMB 43.637 billion in 2012， up 47.3% from a year before. The proportion of income from mobile Internet increas
27、ed from 43.3% in 2011 to 47% in 2012. It has recruited 161 million mobile service subscribers in 2012， increasing by 27%. The figure includes 69.05 million 3G subscribers， taking 43% of the total number and increasing by 14.3%. For the long term， China Telecoms experiences of differentiated traffic-
28、based business and the data innovation accumulated from the engagement in this field will be of positive significance for 4G. First of all， it is necessary to foster the habits of users， and then to take measures to boost the development of mobile Internet. The development of 4G network needs catalysts from the demand for both the Internet and the traffic.
