News Analysis: Putting 3G into Commercial Use on a Large Scale Needs Time

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Thursday, September 26, 2002

News Analysis: Putting 3G into Commercial Use on a Large Scale Needs Time

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Some European countries, America, Japan and South Korea are shrugging off the 3G license shadow, 3G is being available in market in those countries. But insiders said that in recent one to two years, it is still hard for China to put 3G into commercial use on a large scale.

Experts suggest that technology and market are the prerequisites for paving way for putting 3G into commercial use.

In recent one to two years, 3G has been a hot issue globally, 3G license can be auctioned by a very high price, the European supplies spent 120 billion Euro for purchasing 3G license. But a lot of investments are still needed for 3G infrastructures, so even if they want to develop this business, they have to wait.

In global market, there are three 3G standards currently, Europe and Japan put forward the WCDMA standard, North America brought about CDMA 2000 standard, China's Datang developed TD-SCDMA standard, all the three are acknowledged by International Telecommunication Union.

But in recent one year, 3G has been widely promoted in some European, American countries, as well as Korea and Japan. Hong Kong and Taiwan also auction 3G license.

Faced with 3G wave, Chinese Information Industry Minister Wu Jichuan said that "we should closely follow with 3G technology, support 3G according to market needs".

In consideration of global roaming, China's choice on 3G standard will bring great influence on its bordering countries and regions. Telecom officials in some countries discussed on 3G development in China this year.

Liu Cai, chairman of China Telecommunication Association said that it is not very possible for China to popularize 3G by 2005 because current 2G scale is still very large.

According to latest statistics, by the end of last August, mobile phone users in Chinese mainland reached 184.8 million.

Vice president of China Mobile said that, China Mobile will try out 3G in market next year, by 2004, the company will carry out 3G in some cities. But the launch of 3G needs two requirements: one is a policy from the government, the other is mature technology equipped for 3G, according to the vice president.

As a matter of fact, what many Chinese Telecom operators are worrying about is not 3G technology, but whether it would attract enough consumers or bring wide businesses.

Daishuang, director of planning department under the Ministry of Information Industry said that China should choose suitable 3G in compliance with China's condition, in the meanwhile, he stressed protection of current network resources.

He added that 3G technology is not mature enough, so China should pay attention to market needs.

He predicted that technology and equipment for 2G and 2.5 G are still expanding, by 2005, a small scale of 3G market is expected to emerge.

Just as what Daishuang said, everything is in the process, although 3G would not be very popular in Chinese market very soon, it is not far from us anyway.

By PD Online Staff Li Yan

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