China Mobile – the world’s largest operator by subscribers – will begin large-scale outdoor TD-LTE trials next year, according to Marbridge Consulting. The consulting firm cites comments from Ding Haiyu, deputy director of China Mobile Research Institute’s wireless division, who spoke at a recent research forum. Ding also reportedly revealed that China Mobile will deploy 15 TD-LTE base stations at next year’s Shanghai 2010 World Expo.

China Mobile plans to eventually launch TD-LTE networks on a commercial, nationwide scale. TD-LTE operates in unpaired spectrum and uses the TDD version of LTE. In contrast, most operators worldwide will use the FDD version (operating in paired spectrum) of LTE technology. As a result, China Mobile has been heavily pushing the need for a unified and TDD/FDD converged LTE standard. China Mobile will move to LTE after it has seen success from its existing 3G network, based on TD-SCDMA technology.