China approves WCDMA and cdma2000 — MobileMonday Global: Industry News

^{Claims “technology neutrality”} China approves WCDMA and cdma2000

17 May 2007 at 18:29 GMT

Gao Xiaonan, Timo Poropudas

China's Ministry of Information Industry MII approved the use two Western 3G standards. The ministry has already earlier approved the TD-SCDMA flavor of 3G with large Chinese development input and IPR.

"The three world standards will all be used in China," said Yang Peifang, secretary general of the ministry's telecommunication economist panel, according to Xinhua news agency.

China's homegrown TD-SCDMA has been called the "Chinese 3G standard", W-CDMA is mainly supported by European players and cdma2000 is the American favorite.

By adding the two foreign standards to the Chinese market, the government has consolidated its "technology neutral" stance and offered an open market for different technologies, said analysts.

China's major four operators, China Netcom, China Telecom, China Mobile and China Unicom, have started training 3G talents, constituting a war chest and making technological preparations for a smooth transition from the existing mobile telecom networks to 3G.

"We will let operators choose which standard they want to use. But the government will decide how many 3G licenses are issued," said Xi Guohua, Vice Minister of Information Industry.

According to reports in Chinese media, the low domestic demand for 3G services is slowing down the government’s decision making on 3G licences. Evidently operators are expected to invest in market creation.

Some experts indicated that there are three sticking points of with 3G launch. The government has insisted learning from the experience of other countries and applying them to the Chinese market.

Secondly, MII requires that the 3G service will be reasonably priced and it will carry a rich offering also for consumers. In the view of the ministry, narrow, specialised services would be an inefficient use of 3G technology and coverage. MII also sets high security requirements for the 3G services, which in turn demands fairly mature technology.