LIVE FROM BROADBAND WORLD FORUM 2014: Executives from Deutsche Telekom, EE and KPN gave lukewarm responses when asked about the potential for TD-LTE in their various businesses, despite growing momentum for the technology worldwide.

Martin Scholz (pictured right), project leader for core telco products at Deutsche Telekom, said that the operator has “no plans with TDD right now”.

“We’re not using the TDD network in Germany, we are just using it for trials, where we don’t want to disturb our main network,” he said in a discussion yesterday.

Eric Smeitink, manager for technology and innovation at KPN (centre), said that while it has some TDD spectrum in its home market, it was largely bought with an eye to capacity extension, and because of caps on the amount of FDD spectrum the operator could buy.

“If we had the choice we would prefer to have more FDD spectrum,” he said.

In the meantime, TDD is being used for some “special projects”, rather than mainstream operations.

“One of these is in Amsterdam, with the subway, where they wanted to have automated trains without the driver, and for that they needed really reliable video communications,” Smeitink said.

And Mansoor Hanif (left), director of RAN development and programmes for UK number one operator EE, said: “We don’t have TDD spectrum. We looked at it very carefully in the auction, but we went to buy some more FDD spectrum. So we bought 2x35MHz of 2.6GHz, and we’re very happy with that.”

“From what I hear, TDD is still a little in the shadow of FDD in terms of the ecosystem. It is moving, but not that fast. From what we can see it is more for specialised implementation,” he continued.

With regard to the ecosystem development, Mohammad Shakouri, chairman of the WiMAX Forum and moderator of the debate, said: “I think the China Mobile deployment this year will bring more tools to the toolbox. Most people do not see TDD versus FDD. It’s just ‘how do I get more capacity using licensed spectrum’.”