China Mobile, the world’s largest mobile carrier by subscriber, is reportedly to begin its first tender for over 100, 000 units of TD-LTE devices as soon as this month, in a move to accelerate the commercial deployment of 4G service.
China Mobile’s terminal unit, China Mobile Terminal Company, will start the tender process by end of July. The tender, which is the country’s first tender for 4G terminals, include 3,000 units of TD-LTE data cards, 6,000 mobile WiFi (MIFI) modem, and 1000 CPE, according to mainland online portal www.ccid.com
The report doesn’t indicate whether the tender include handsets or not , but China Mobile vice general manager Li Zhengmao said earlier this week that the operator would launch more than 10 TD-LTE smartphones by mid-2013 and rise to over 100 by 2014.
China Mobile is currently testing TD-LTE in 13 cities, including Hangzhou and Shenzhen, where China Mobile is using new spectrum to operate the trail networks.