China has finally devised its schedule for trials of its homegrown third generation (3G) mobile communication standard TD-SCDMA, according to a source close to the Ministry of Information Industry.

 

The trials will be carried out in the northern city of Baoding, the eastern city of Qingdao and the southern city of Xiamen by China Telecom, China Netcom and China Mobile respectively.

 

Three major companies in the TD-SCDMA camp will provide equipment for the test.

 

Datang Mobile and TD-Tech, a joint-venture by Siemens and Huawei, will build the trial network with China Telecom in Baoding, a city in Hebei Province near Beijing.

 

Products of ZTE and TD-Tech will be used for network construction in Xiamen, a coastal city in Fujian Province, with China Mobile. Qingdao in east China's Shandong Province is also selected as the site for the trial as some water sports programs will be held there during the 2008 Olympics. Datang Mobile and ZTE will help China Netcom in the network construction there.

 

After three rounds of tests, China's TD-SCDMA is at the last stage before real commercial use. The result of trials this time is expected to partly decide when and to whom China issues its first 3G license.

 

Compared with the other two international 3G standards WCDMA and CDMA2000, TD-SCDMA has the disadvantage of being a late comer. Though the technology proves to be quite competitive against the other two standards, lack of industrialization experience has cast doubts over it. Chinese telecom operators were reported to be reluctant to use TD-SCDMA.

 

China Unicom will adopt CDMA 2000 as it already has a CDMA network. Other operators favor WCDMA and they even built trial networks based on WCDMA in a dozen cities nationwide without permission from the government.

 

Last February, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) and the Ministry of Information Industry asked the companies concerned to remove the WCDMA networks.

 

As the government's attitude towards 3G becomes clearer, it is widely believed within the industry that China will issue a TD-SCDMA license ahead of the other two standards and give favorable policies to operators using the technology.

 

Active participation of the three telecom operators in this round of trials shows that they may like to support a home-grown standard, said an analyst.

 

China may be able to start the trial in March as scheduled and then could be in a position to issue the first 3G license in the middle of the year, according to the analyst.

 

(Xinhua News Agency March 13, 2006)