A race is under way to supply the necessary gear for China's three 3G networks now that the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has finally awarded the relevant licences. The licences are hardly a shock given that China recently re-organised its communications operations into three distinct companies. The short straw was picked by China Mobile which is the world's largest mobile operator in terms of subscribers. The network was awarded a licence for TD-SCDMA - China's home-grown version of 3G. To say TD-SCDMA technology is immature is putting it mildly but it won't necessary mean that only Chinese suppliers (such as ZTE and Huawei) will benefit. Siemens had proposed a very similar standard for UMTS (Europe's 3G) in the first place, so it has plenty of expertise in the area. Hence there are reports that Nokia Siemens has been ramping up its Chinese operations in expectation. Then there's Samsung which provided TD-SCDMA handsets for the Beijing Olympics and Motorola, which has long enjoyed a strong share of the Chinese market, has a TD-SCDMA handset, too. LG is another international player which has provided TD-SCDMA handsets while China's own ZTE, Postcom, Amoi and Hisense have also previously supplied China Mobile with handsets for its 'test' 3G networks. It's China Unicom which is sitting pretty, however, because it won the licence for a W-CDMA-based network which has become the dominant 3G technology. Nonetheless, all is not lost for arch rival CDMA 2000 which will be used for the 3G network to be operated by China Telecom. The announcement will be a fillip for the mobile phone industry in general, given that sales are likely to fall in mature 3G markets such as Western Europe and North America.
( www.theinquirer.net )
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