The first global summit of key players in the 3.5GHz LTE TDD industry was held on February 29 during a round table conference at the 2012 Mobile World Congress (MWC). Participant included 3.5GHz operators from UK, Ireland, Italy, Spain, Latin America, North America, and the Middle East as well as infrastructure and chipset vendors Huawei, Huawei HiSilicon, Sequans, and Altair. The summit (the first of its kind) marked a milestone for the commercialization of the 3.5GHz LTE TDD.

Widely allocated worldwide, the 3.5GHz band typically constitutes “rich” spectrum for operators. Deploying LTE TDD in this band has the advantage of wider bandwidth and higher throughput.

British operator UK Broadband (UKB) announced the launch of a LTE TDD commercial network at the MWC, with Huawei serving as their sole vendor for infrastructure equipment and terminals. The network will be the first 3.5GHz LTE TDD network to be commercialized, and will be the UK’s first LTE commercial network.

At the summit, UKB shared its experiences regarding network construction, terminal selection, and business models. At the next 3.5GHz summit this coming March or April in London, UKB will present a live demonstration.

Spectrum is king when facing a superabundance of data traffic, and operators utilizing LTE TDD for 3.5GHz spectrum results in higher efficiency and quality. Huawei released advanced infrastructure and 3.5GHz (3.4G-3.7G) LTE TDD CPE e2e solutions during the summit. Vendors—including Huawei, Huawei HiSilicon, Sequans, and Altair—all showed their willingness to provide any and all support to the 3.5GHz LTE TDD industry.

During the summit, a consensus among operators was reached that a 3.5GHz LTE TDD alliance should be established as proposed by UKB, signifying that a 3.5GHz LTE TDD “commercialization fleet” is ready to set sail.