Europe : China Mobile announced that it is set to join LTE (Long Term Evolution) trials already being carried out by Vodafone and Verizon Wireless, a joint venture of Verizon Communications and Vodafone.

The resultant three-way operator trials will focus on LTE FDD (the Frequency Division Duplex version of LTE) for use with paired spectrum allocations and TD-LTE (the Time Division Duplex version of LTE) as an evolution of current TD-SCDMA technology to enable the exploitation of unpaired spectrum globally.

The trials are designed to explore the performance of LTE with different spectrum types as a potential next generation mobile technology. They will provide an opportunity to adopt a harmonised access platform with global scale and high performance inter-working with the existing technologies of all three companies.

The availability of LTE FDD and TD-LTE systems will enable an effective and low cost solution for both paired and unpaired spectrum. Multi-mode devices will create regional and global roaming opportunities. This also raises the prospect of providing greater interoperability between different global operators offering customers greater convenience and seamless global roaming. The LTE technology, which is still being tested and standardised is designed to deliver mobile data networks with higher speeds and throughput performance, lower latency, global roaming, and improved efficiencies.

LTE is an evolution of existing 3G (WCDMA, TD-SCDMA and CDMA) cellular networks and has the advantage of offering inter-working with existing 3G technologies. "China Mobile is happy to work with Vodafone and Verizon Wireless to explore TD-LTE together with FDD LTE as a high-performance and low cost evolution option from our current networks. This will help to build an ecosystem that could result in a win-win situation for the whole industry to meet the growing customer demand for wireless broadband," said Mr. Sha Yuejia, China Mobile's Vice President. "Verizon looks upon LTE as a singular opportunity to align wireless carriers on a 4G technology which will support the desires of customers to have a common experience, with any device of their choosing, anywhere in the world.

We look forward to working closely with China Mobile and Vodafone, sharing trial results, and ultimately planning compatible networks with them, and all the other worldwide carriers who are considering the deployment of LTE," said Richard Lynch, CTO for Verizon. "Vodafone relishes the opportunity of working alongside China Mobile as well as Verizon Wireless in the development of LTE FDD/TDD technology, and we're looking forward to assessing the results of the trials. We fully support China Mobile's efforts to explore LTE as a potential candidate for its future wireless broadband needs," said Steve Pusey, Vodafone's Global Chief Technology Officer.