Mainland in no great hurry to give vendors green light
TD-SCDMA tests continue, and officials say 'there's still time'
Hopes that the central government would soon unveil a schedule for implementing a 3G licensing policy have been dashed - again - as the mainland gives its homegrown technology standard more time to mature.
Telecommunications equipment suppliers such as Finland's Nokia have been eagerly waiting for an official announcement on 3G. Wang Jianhui, vice-president of Nokia China Investment, and others in the industry have been urging China to be quick and decisive.
But unimpressive field trials so far for third-generation technology TD-SCDMA (time division synchronous code division multiple access) means Mr Wang and others could be waiting well into next year for the mainland to announce how many licences it plans to issue, and when.
Government officials suggest the matter is not urgent and that China can afford to wait.
Xu Yu, a deputy director at the China Academy of Telecoms Research, a think-tank under the Ministry of Information Industry (MII), said global 3G development had yet to reach the point at which China would fear it was falling behind.
'China doesn't need 3G now - we still have time to wait a bit longer to carefully plan a 3G policy,' Ms Xu said on the sidelines of a three-day 3G conference held by the research academy in Beijing last week.
'Global 3G markets are just beginning to take up. It is going to take a few years before 3G becomes phenomenal.'
Comments from MII vice-minister Lou Qinjian yielded few clues as to when China might issue licences. Instead, he stressed the need for the mainland to be cautious. 'The pace of China's 3G development not only affects the wireless industry in China but also impacts the world's wireless market,' he said.
'To plan China's 3G strategy, we need to consider all factors, including the maturity of system equipment and terminals, as well as market development.'
Ms Xu said it was better to wait for high-speed phone services to show a greater business viability than to rush 3G licence decisions when the technologies were still experiencing hiccups.
While questions surrounding licences remained unanswered, last week's conference did yield a few positive developments.
The telecoms regulator said 3G technologies - especially W-CDMA and CDMA 2000 - demonstrated a significant improvement in stability and reliability in field trials, and were ready for commercial operations. In addition, the China Academy of Telecommunications Research made clear its belief the government should build three nationwide networks using all three technology standards.
Full-scale field trials found TD-SCDMA to be lagging Europe's W-CDMA standard and CDMA 2000, a technology promoted by Qualcomm in the United States.
TD-SCDMA showed improvement over the past year but was still performing below standard in transmitting calls among different networks and equipment vendors.
Also, just one prototype handset and data card were available for testing, while there was a multitude of commercially available phones for W-CDMA and CDMA 2000.
Zhou Huan, chairman of Datang Telecom Technology and Industry Group, a TD-SCDMA advocate, promised that chipsets and handsets for the technology would be ready by the middle of next year.
Zhang Xinsheng, deputy director-general of MII's science and technology department, has made it clear that China's 3G development is closely tied to TD-SCDMA's progress, and he has called on more vendors to support the standard.
After years of development, TD-SCDMA had caught the attention of domestic and foreign firms, Mr Zhang said. Only when TD-SCDMA started to attract widespread global interest, and the technology and standard had been further improved would 3G prospects look promising in China, he added.
