Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio Infocomm will be the main beneficiaries of 4G license issued today to Chinese telecom service providers — China Mobile, China Unicom Hong Kong and China Telecom.
Reuters reported that China Mobile, China Unicom Hong Kong and China Telecom have received 4G licences from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology for the TD-LTE standard that will benefit telecom vendors like Apple and others.
The much awaited development will boost 4G deployments in India where Bharti Airtel is the market leader (without any competition). Bharti Airtel will compete with Reliance Jio Infocomm which will kick off its 4G journey on TD-LTE network next year.
The telecom industry is expecting that there will be more cost effective 4G phones to support the roll out of 4G networks in India. At present, lack of phones capable enough to support 4G is impacting the 4G growth in India. This apart, 4G LTE is not widely available though the licenses for BWA spectrum was given in 2010.
Indian phone makers such as Karbonn, Micromax, etc. is also planning to introduce cost effective 4G smartphones next year to support the growth of 4G eco-system in the country.
Telecom vendors such as Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson, Huawei, NSN, ZTE, etc. are already gaining from China Mobile’s 4G roll outs. Its 4G is expected to be available from 18 December.
The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology website on Wednesday said it issued licenses for the TD-LTE standard, not the FDD-LTE standard which is more widely adopted globally. The licences will mostly benefit China Mobile, whose 4G network is heavily based on TD-LTE.
The ministry also awarded China Mobile a license to operate fixed-line broadband services, according to the company. Previously, only China Unicom and China Telecom were able to offer fixed-line broadband.
China Mobile, the country’s largest mobile carrier by subscribers, has trailed behind its smaller rivals in attracting users to its home-grown 3G standard due to its poorer network service.
China Mobile’s 3G subscribers accounted for 23 percent of its total subscribers as of the end of October, compared with42 and 54 percent for China Unicom and China Telecom, respectively.
China is only expected to license FDD-LTE networks – ChinaUnicom and China Telecom’s favoured standard – sometime next year.
China Mobile issued a statement on its website acknowledging the award of the 4G and fixed-line broadband licenses, adding that it would collaborate with the supply chain to make an all-out effort to push forward the construction and operation of4G mobile communications.
China Telecom said it would apply for a FDD-LTE licence as soon as practicable, according to a statement to the Hong Kong Exchange, while China Unicom declined to comment.
Pix: from Sprint
