China Mobile has come up with a 2017 handset business development plan with a focus on maintaining its 4G+ competitiveness, according to the company.

China Mobile will optimize VoLTE services through launching video voice communication services and adopting product standards developed by Belgium-based EVS, 3GPP bSRVCC (single radio voice call continuity before ringing) and H.265 video encoding.

FDD-LTE and TD-LTE smartphones priced at over CNY1,000 (US$145) should support Band 8 and Band 34, respectively, frequency units beginning August 1, 2017. Beginning the end of 2017, all 4G smartphones should support Band 8 and Band 34 and models priced over CNY3,000 should support five modes (3G and 4G standards) and 13 frequency bands. In addition, China Mobile will promote NFC and RCS (rich communication services) applications as well as CA (carrier aggregation) to increase frequency band utilization efficiency.

In line with maintaining 4G+ competitiveness, China Mobile will set up LTE-A (LTE Advanced) testing as well as NB-IoT and eMTC (enhanced machine type communication) testing capabilities specifically for IoT.

China Mobile expects to sell 375 million handsets in 2017, slipping about 6% on year.