Siemens Allied with Six Top Chinese Websites

Siemens Allied with Six Top Chinese Websites

Siemens will ally with six mainstream Chinese websites making it possible for customers to view these sites via Siemens mobile phones, an official with Siemens announced Monday in Beijing.

The six websites -- Yahoo.com.cn, sina.com, netease.com, china. com, 8848.com, Stockstar.com -- can be accessed through Siemens handsets with WAP (Wireless Application Protocol), the official said.

Siemens WAP mobile phones users can reach the websites simply by some clicks, beacuse the websites will be written into the configuration files of the mobile phones according to an agreement between Siemens and China Mobile Telecommunications (Group) Co.

Siemens will also provide General Packet Radio Services (GPRS) systems to the Chinese enterprise either later this year or early next year under the cooperation with China Unicom and China Mobile Telecommunications (Group) Co., the country's leading providers of telecommunications service.

GPRS is the evolution of GSM, the current European standard for mobiles, to Universal Mobile Telecommunications System, or UMTS. UMTS is seen as the next generation of mobile phone services, and will allow cell phones to be used more like computers by integrating voice, images, data and video.

GPRS will allow mobile phones to access the Internet and download files from the Web as well as handle e-mail, use on-line services and e-commerce.

So far, the WAP mobile phones with Internet access are widely advertised but not sold well in China's market. Analysts attribute that to high fees for Internet subscription, narrow bandwidth, and insufficient information in Chinese.