China Mobile, the country's largest mobile carrier, will release its first voice-over-LTE phones next year as part of its plan to bring a full range of handsets to its upcoming 4G network.
The carrier, with over 700 million customers, has steadily been building up industry-wide support for a 4G technology, LTE TDD, that the Chinese government has been actively promoting. Later this year, the country's regulators will issue commercial 4G licenses to the telecom operators, enabling China Mobile to roll out services using the 4G standard.
The first batch of LTE TDD handsets have already received Chinese regulatory approval, according to Tang Jianfeng, vice general manager for China Mobile's devices company.
"Once they receive a network access license, the LTE devices can start to be sold," he said Tuesday at the Smartphone 2.0 Summit held by The Great Wall Club. In total, eight LTE TDD products have passed regulatory checks, Tang added.
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