The sixth GTI workshop was held in Barcelona, Spain on Feb 21-22 right ahead of GSMA World Mobile Congress 2013. More than one hundred representatives from China Mobile, Vodafone, Softbank, Clearwire, etc. participated this two-day meeting, managing to promote the solutions for commercialization of TD-LTE and convergence of TD-LTE and LTE FDD.

This workshop focused on the industrialization of multi-mode/band terminals, integrated solutions, global roaming, consumer electronic devices, and the Internet of Vehicle. In the aspect of terminals, it was reported that the success rate of over 1400 tests on 5-mode 12-band MiFi available for the entire band of 2.6GHz reached 98 percent, with power consumption same as the level of FDD LTE. This has received high recognition from operators. In 2013, GTI will further promote the development of highly integrated multi-mode/band RF front-end products and multi-mode/band smart phones. For commercialization and business applications, based on the realization of roaming between China Mobile and Clearwire, China Mobile and KT’s TD-LTE network, and between TD-LTE and FDD LTE, GTI will scale up the existing core working group on GTI global roaming for further growth of the global roaming of LTE TDD/FDD data services. In addition, GTI will unite with GSMA to promote international automobile enterprises to support TD-LTE based Internet of Vehicles. Moreover, GTI Spectrum Working Group will cooperate with major international organizationsand national regulatory agencies to propel united planning of global TDD spectrum to avoid fragmented application.

In 2012, GTI successfully became a solution research and product promotion platform by establishing three working groups on, respectively, network, terminal, and commercialization/application,mainly responsible for eleven task forces and in charge of one core roaming working group. Up to now, an increasingly complete industry chain for TD-LTE covering systems, terminals, chips, and testing instruments has been created, laying a solid foundation for its global commercial deployment. Meanwhile, TD-LTE has seen an increasing market base around the world, evidenced by the commercial launch of fourteen TD-LTE networks.

GTI is a virtual open platform jointly founded by China Mobile, Softbank (Japan), Bharti (India), Clearwire (America), and Vodafone (UK), in an effort to advocate cooperation among global operators and industry partners to promote TD-LTE. Its aim is to solve key issues in the development of TD-LTE for increasing maturity and realize the convergence of TD-LTE and LTE FDD, eventually accomplishing the global deployment of TD-LTE. Since its foundation, GTI has made a series of effective moves, including motivating operators to expand network scale, accelerating the convergence of FDD/TDD for global roaming terminals, establishing new LTE roaming services, and promoting LTE-based service and application innovation. All these have enabled a great leap forward for TD-LTE, especially in terms of its globalization and industry development over the past two years. As of December 2012, GTI had 51 operator members from Asia, Europe, America, and Oceania as well as 44 industry partner members, growing into an influential global platform in mobile broadband technology.