Qualcomm in talks with Chinese players
February 27, 2003
Qualcomm said it was meeting with carriers China Telecom and China
Netcom about adopting its 3G standard in next-generation mobile
services.
China Telecom and China Netcom are expected to receive mobile licences
late this year or in early 2004, allowing them to enter the lucrative
business and compete with China Unicom and China Mobile.
"We've held informal discussions with them at various levels of
officials," Irwin Jacobs, Qualcomm's chairman and chief executive,
told reporters in response to a question.
"I think they will go ahead with CDMA," he said, referring to the
CDMA standard which Qualcomm developed and added the talks were
still in the early stages.
Analysts say that although China's next-generation mobile services
may not be commercially available until 2004 at the earliest.
China Mobile, China's dominant mobile operator, would likely continue
to offer a European-developed technology while China Unicom would
stick with a Qualcomm-based standard when both roll out 3G services,
they say.
China Telecom and China Netcom, as yet uncommitted to any technology,
could adopt either of the two standards or support a homegrown standard
called TD-SCDMA, possibly in tandem with one of the other technologies.
Qualcomm announced it would set up a technology joint venture with
China Unicom, which aggressively promotes its own CDMA-based mobile
service, to develop wireless data applications. This shows China
Unicom has further committed itself to the CDMA2000 standard for
3G mobiles.
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3G Motorola A920
