According to several sources of the industry chains, MIIT will probably issue FDD LTE licenses to China Unicom and China Telecom before the Spring Festival. However, relevant personnel of China Unicom and China Telecom both said that they haven’t received notices from the MIIT when C114 asked them by telephone.
Industry insiders believe that conditions are mature to issue national FDD licenses--it not only leaves enough time for China Mobile’s TD-LTE, but also promotes the mature of TD-LTE industry.
More importantly, China Unicom and China Telecom are eager to conduct national FDD LTE scale commercialization and narrow down the gaps with China Mobile, if the gaps are left to continue to grow, it will be hard to find a way in remodeling the balance of telecom industry markets but restructuring.
The long-time delayed issuance of FDD LTE licenses even triggered the imagination of merger of China Unicom and China Telecom. If the sole giant position of China Mobile is not contained effectively, then restructuring is inevitable to maintain the effective competition of telecom industry. But this will induce more serious problems, including monopolization of fixed line networks, lay off of employees and others. It’s lucky that the issuance of FDD LTE licenses will improve the abnormal competing situation of the three major operators.