China Telecom has selected five vendors for the FDD component of its hybrid FDD-TDD LTE network trials via a competitive tender process.
The company has named Huawei, ZTE, Nokia, Alcatel-Lucent Shanghai Bell and Ericsson as its main vendors for the second-phase of its LTE trial rollout, C114reported.
Sources close to the tender told the publication that Huawei and ZTE are likely to have picked up more than half of the tender between them, although the exact share of each vendor has yet to be finalized.
The sources added that competition during the second-round tender was fierce.
The tender mainly covered network elements including base stations, BBU+RRU and OMC-R. China Telecom started taking bids in November, completing the process in two months.
China Telecom is conducting FDD-TDD LTE network tests in 56 cities as part of the hybrid network trials approved by the government.
The operator is rolling out TDD LTE in key cities, but because China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology is yet to hand out nationwide FDD licenses, its hybrid rollouts are so far contained to the 56 approved cities.