India to Lead the Way With LTE TDD

India looks set to be the market that will shape the technology ecosystem for the rest of the world, as the first large-scale network rollouts by the Broadband Wireless Access (BWA) license holders, and resulting mass services, are set for late 2011 and throughout 2012. (See .)

China had looked likely to lead the way, with China Mobile Ltd., the carrier that has been driving the development of the technology's ecosystem, heavily involved in trials during 2010 and early this year. (See , , , and .)

But it now seems unlikely there will be any LTE TDD services launched in China until 2014, according to a China Daily report.

And while the launch of LTE TDD broadband wireless services in India may not happen in 2011 (opinions differ on the possible timing), network rollouts for a number of operators are due to start during the second half of this year followed by service launch in early 2012, with Aircel Ltd., Bharti Airtel Ltd. and Reliance Industries Ltd. (RIL) the first in line. (See , Reliance Fleshes Out Its LTE TDD Plans, and India's Reliance Secures LTE TDD Partner.)

This places these Indian operators in an unfamiliar position: Usually they are deploying technologies that are mature and which are tried and tested around the world. With LTE TDD, though, there are no other operators to turn to for knowledge and guidance. (See and .)

"This means that we [Indian operators] would have to fine-tune and learn as we go along," says Professor Bhaskar Ramamurthi, honorary director at India's Center of Excellence in Wireless Technology (CEWiT). "At the same time it is an opportunity for us to be involved in the standardization process and we look forward to significantly contributing to Release 11 of LTE," Professor Ramamurthi tells Light Reading Asia.

Launched in 2004, CEWiT is an autonomous research organization set up to develop next-generation wireless technology in India. CEWiT was involved in the standardization of 802.16m, the latest version of mobile WiMax (also known as WiMax 2.0). (See .)

Commenting on the challenges the Indian operators are likely to face as they prepare to deploy LTE TDD technology, Professor Ramamurthi says: "BWA is likely to be a primary broadband connectivity for many people [in India] so spectrum efficiency has to be very high. The network has to be scalable. Besides, the role of a scheduler is going to be a challenge."

Whether India's BWA operators are up to those challenges is something the market looks likely to discover in the next 12 months.

Gagandeep Kaur, India Editor, Light Reading