TD-LTE brings the future to China, says an Ovum article. Author Steven Hartley further says that we believe that China Mobile’s trial TD-LTE network will have global ramifications.

"One of the most striking aspects of the Expo is how the different future visions assumed connectivity. For example, the “Road to the Future”, presented by the Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation (SAIC) and General Motors, envisaged a world where smart cars, grids, and devices connected people on personal, city, and global levels. In fact, the presentation featured a far stronger telecoms message than automotive.", article noted.

China Mobile’s trial TD-LTE network at the Expo shows how future communications and “the internet of things” will be delivered. The trial network covers the entire 5.28 square-km site, outdoors with 17 base stations, and inside in nine pavilions and two demonstration centers.

There is a lot of TDD spectrum available, and in most cases it is cheaper and under-utilized. 3G licenses frequently have TDD allocations and upcoming 2.5 GHz auction in most cases contemplate TDD bands.

Interest in TD-LTE continues to grow because of several key factors: the low cost of TDD spectrum that is particularly attractive to emerging and developing markets; operators' continuing need for more capacity and spectrum; and the ability to roaming and hand-off between TD-LTE and FDD LTE networks. In effect, this ability to roam between FDD LTE and TD-LTE means operators can use TD-LTE networks to augment their FDD LTE network for more capacity or other applications such as video broadcasting, while operators choosing to use TD-LTE as their "main" network can still offer their subscribers the ability to roam to other operators' FDD LTE networks in different countries.