On October 19, WiMAX was officially approved by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) as the global standard of the 3G industry. The impact on China's 3G standard, TD-SCDMA, has aroused strong concerns among industrial players. TD-SCDMA makes people uneasy.

"With WiMAX being approved as the global standard, it almost completely blocks the international market for the TD-SCDMA standard," wrote Xiang Ligang in his web blog. Xiang is the former editor-in-chief of Communications World magazine. One anonymous official from the Science and Technology Department under China's Ministry of Information Industry said that they are doing an assessment of the WiMAX endorsement.

Currently, the development of TD-SCDMA has entered a very critical moment in China. The installment of China Mobile's large-scale commercial network covering several provinces has drawn to a close. Additionally, some of the TD-SCDMA commercial applications are also available, according to information from the TD-SCDMA Industry Alliance.

"WiMAX will not be a head-on rival of the TD-SCDMA," an unnamed insider from Datang Telecom said in an interview with Caijing magazine.

After WiMAX was approved as the international 3G standard, the senior managers of the TD-SCDMA Industry Alliance privately expressed their disapproval of the ITU's announcement. In 1997, an agreement was promised by the ITU. It guaranteed that the future global 3G standard selection would not consider any new applications submitted after 1997, regardless of technical advancement. The alliance members said that the ITU had shirked on this agreement.

For more details, please read the full story in Chinese. (http://www.caijing.com.cn/newcn/home/todayspec/2007-10-22/34664.shtml)

(China.org.cn October 23, 2007)