China may not see 4G for another 2-3 years

China may have just hit 1 billion mobile subscribers, but it looks like all billion of them will be waiting a few years before they see 4G service. In a discussion aired on state TV a few days ago, Ministry of Industry and Information Technology leader, Miao Wei, said that China would most likely wait another 2 to 3 years to issue 4G licenses for LTE TDD networks.

Wei stated that the country hopes to expand its current network of 220,000 TD-SCDMA base stations to 400,000, and then upgrade those units to LTE TDD before offering 4G licenses. He anticipates that process will take three years to complete.

State owned China Mobile is a driving force behind LTE TDD deployment, but Wei also cited handset and chip vendor support as a barrier to entry. He said, “We need their active participation, to speed up development of the commercial trials.”

source: PCWorld