LIVE FROM GSMA MOBILE ASIA EXPO 2013: China Mobile laid out its strategy during today’s conference for coping with future bandwidth demand by combining small cells and Wi-Fi within its network.

The operator already claims to run the world’s largest carrier-managed Wi-Fi network. It has deployed six million access points in the last four years. And it has rolled out one million microcells.

“Between Wi-Fi and small cells, I think fundamentally they are solving the same bandwidth problem. I think the convergence of the two technologies will become a consolidated and combined architecture for next generation mobile networks. This is the direction to go,” said Bill Huang, general manager at the China Mobile Research Institute.

In addition, the Chinese operator published a white paper last year of how it plans to combine Wi-Fi and LTE small cells in a deployment that will use 2.4GHz, 5GHz, as well as LTE frequencies. For indoor small cell coverage, the operator will use 2.3GHz frequencies.

And China Mobile wants to create more awareness among other operators about this issue. AT&T is already on board, said Huang. “We are actively trying to get people to jump on the bandwagon to raise awareness about this issue.”