Softbank Talks TD-LTE at MAC
SoftBank touts their TD-LTE plans at Mobile Asia Congress with 12,000 base-stations to be deployed in 2012: http://bit.ly/t2hGqM
The junior LTE standard, TD-LTE, has been in the spotlight at this week’s GSMA Mobile Asia Congress, with Softbank and China Mobile outlining their plans.
The Japanese cellco acquired TDD spectrum when it took over the 2.6GHz licences held by ailing Willcom, the operator of the country’s ageing PHS mobile services. The spectrum was originally to have been used for a PHS upgrade called XPG, but Softbank will instead use the fairly similar TD-LTE standard, while ensuring compatibility for the legacy users.
Tetsuzo Matsumoto, a board member at the operator, told the conference that Softbank would become one of the world’s first commercial TD-LTE carriers when it goes live as early as next March. It would join smaller early adopters in Saudi Arabia and Poland.
Matsumoto said that Softbank is looking to deploy around 12,000 base stations covering 92% of the population of Japan next year. Via Re-Think Wireless.