LIVE FROM GSMA MOBILE ASIA CONGRESS 2011: Craig Ehrlich, chairman of the GTI steering committee, this morning detailed the group’s progress since its formation at the GSMA Mobile World Congress in February 2011, noting that in terms of fostering the development and interoperability of the technology, it is looking to echo the rollout of GSM. “That is the business model we are trying to imitate as we introduce these new technologies,” he said.

Ehrlich (pictured) noted that in the 10 months since its inception, the GTI has added 22 new members from the operator community, taking its total to 32. Along with support from vendors and other industry participants, “this has well revealed the healthy and robust business environment for the TD-LTE ecosystem.”

This was followed by an address by Anne Bouverot, director general of the GSMA, who noted the advantages of TD-LTE technology, as well as highlighting the need for dual-mode devices which support both TD-LTE and FDD LTE flavours.

“There are broad industry trends which make TD-LTE a very attractive option. Demand for bandwidth is at an all-time high for operators, and spectrum is in very short supply in many markets. Unpaired spectrum suitable for TDD technologies is either already available or being licensed in the near future, and licence fees for unpaired spectrum are relatively low compared to other spectrum,” she noted.

“Many operators who already took unpaired spectrum a few years ago with the intent of deploying WiMAX are now finding that this technology may not be the best one in the near term, and TD-LTE is an obvious alternative for these operators,” she continued.

“Most chipset vendors have already announced TD-LTE products. This is a great development, but it’s not enough to really drive this market to scale. A key requirement for the success of this market is dual-mode chipsets, for TD-LTE and FDD LTE. It is encouraging that we are already seeing some products hitting the market, but I cannot emphasise it enough that dual-mode chipsets are vital for the success of this industry,” Bouverot said.

"We cannot allow this industry to split again between technologies, as we saw in the past with WCDMA and CDMA2000, and then later with TD-SCDMA. LTE should be the unifying technology for all operators worldwide.”

Erik Prusch, CEO of US wholesale operator Clearwire, also stressed the importance of TD-LTE as an industry standard. “The importance of this standard, and the wide range of companies supporting it, cannot be overstated. By covering billions of potential customers with a common network technology, we will create an infrastructure and device market that will draw in the most important manufacturers in the industry. They in turn will have the chance to supply their products, including some of the most popular wireless devices in the world, to one of the largest mobile broadband customer bases ever established.”

“Most significantly, the economies of scale created by a common infrastructure of this scale will create a significant competitive advantage for every industry player, from the chip maker, base station manufacturer, device producer and network operators like Clearwire.”

While Clearwire was something of a pioneer in the delivery of high-speed mobile broadband services through its deployment of WiMAX technology, the company has also announced plans to deploy TD-LTE to meet growing capacity demands in a number of markets.