Chinese govn't OKs program on 3G standards

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Wednesday, March 17, 2004

Chinese govn't OKs program on 3G standards

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The Chinese Government has endorsed a program on the research, development and commercial application of TD-SCDMA standards for the third-generation (3G) mobile communications network, viewed by Chinese insiders as "encouraging news".

Endorsed by China's State Development and Reform Commission, the program would commit a considerable amount of funds starting from this year.

Third-generation mobile communications networks offer faster delivery of data and pictures. The three standards for 3G in the world, WCDMA, CDMA2000 and China-sponsored TD-SCDMA, are vying to take the dominant role in the vast Chinese telecommunications market, which hasn't issued a license for 3G services yet.

According to local press reports, which quoted unnamed but "reliable" sources, this May would witness the emergence of the first commercial TD-SCDMA mobile phones. There would be no less than 10 models of such phones by the end of this year.

"Datang and other Chinese companies have made much progress in TD-SCDMA research and development recently. We will announce the latest results towards the end of March," said an official with Datang Mobile Communications Equipment Co. Ltd, a major initiator of the TD-SCDMA standards.

A number of leading domestic and foreign mobile phone producershave joined with Datang in developing TD-SCDMA standards and equipment, including Huawei Technologies, ZTE Corporation, Legend Group and Siemens.

Zhou Huan, chairman of Datang Group, said at the end of last year that Datang would begin large-scale construction of a commercial TD-SCDMA network in the fourth quarter and promotion ofits commercial use in the first half of 2005.

If China's TD-SCDMA standard is adopted, Chinese telecom operators would be spared from paying for foreign standards and technology.

China will launch the second round of field testing of the 3G network and mobile phones by the end of March. According to the plan of the Ministry of Information Industry (MII), the European WCDMA standards will be first tested.

China Railcom, one of the five telecom networks to participate in the testing, is putting up 20 base stations in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou to form a WCDMA testing network. An official with China Railcom said it was possible to watch TV programs on mobile phones within the WCDMA testing network.

Song Junde, a researcher with Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, did not rule out the possibility that all the three standards would be adopted in China.

China had 269 million mobile phone users by the end of 2003 andthe number is expected to approach 500 million by the end of 2007,of which 30 percent would be 3G users, according to a forecast of CCID Consulting Co., a think tank for MII.

Third-generation communications technology would make mobile office and mobile commerce possible in China. The volume of China's mobile commerce could reach 100 billion yuan (about 12.05 billion dollars) by 2007, said the forecast.

Source: Xinhua

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