China Telecom plans to build a hybrid TD/FDD LTE network in line with the allocation of 4G licences in China, reports Telecomasia.

The Chinese number-three operator will spend CNY5 billion ($816.5 million) this year to deploy a trial LTE network, with the majority of the network investment supporting both TD-LTE and FDD-LTE.

Speaking at the company’s results press conference, Wang Xiaochu, China Telecom chairman and CEO, said the approach is to ensure flexibility in the long-term development of its 4G networks.

“To support national technology innovation and allow flexible use of spectrum resources to meet customer demand, we plan to deploy one hybrid LTE network of integrated resources, sharing the core network with wireless access through both TDD and FDD,” Wang said.

Little detail was given about the timing and scale of the trial network, although deployment will start in China’s more densely populated areas.

The operator is also in early discussions about renting China Mobile’s TD-LTE network. Wang said the most likely scenario is that China Telecom will build its own core networks and share base stations.

China’s number-two operator, China Unicom, recently stressed that FDD-LTE will be an important part of its 4G plans. Chang Xiebing, its chairman and CEO, said the company is looking to trial TD-LTE during the second half of the year but added it “will be well prepared for the FDD-LTE network construction, and we believe that the government and the regulators have very clear requirements for us”.

Like China’s 3G licensing process, which put considerable focus on TD-SCDMA technology at the expense of global 3G standards WCDMA and CDMA2000 1x EV-DO, the 4G licence allocation is expected to favour “indigenous” technologies, with TD-LTE licences issued ahead of those for the more commonly deployed FDD-LTE.

Chang said China Unicom will “actively promote the evolution of WCDMA to FDD-LTE”.

Although FDD-LTE is the most popular LTE variant globally, TD-LTE has seen traction in other markets, with Japan’s SoftBank and India’s Bharti Airtel two big-name advocates of the technology. China Mobile is the biggest backer with numerous trials and plans to move from 3G TD-SCDMA to TD-LTE as soon as 4G licences are allocated.

The Global mobile Suppliers Association (GSA) recently revealed that 182 of the world’s 200 LTE networks use FDD-LTE with nine using TD-LTE. The remainder use a combination of the two.

The Global TD-LTE Initiative (GTI), the operator group supporting the technology, has made FDD-LTE interoperability central to its efforts, to enable the seamless coexistence of both options.