China to build trial networks in five more cities

February 12, 2007

China has started to build trial networks for a locally developed 3G mobile-phone technology in five more cities, raising the number of cities testing the technology to 10, Ministry of Information Industry spokesman Wang Lijian said Monday.

Wang said there is no timetable for finishing the trials. He declined to say which operators will build and operate the new trial networks, or comment on when China will issue 3G licenses.

He said the trial for Time Division Synchronous Code Division Multiple Access will also take place in Guangzhou and Shenzhen in the south of the country, Qinhuangdao and Tianjin in the east, and Shenyang in the northeast.

China is already testing TD-SCDMA in Beijing, Shanghai, the eastern coastal city of Qingdao, the northern city of Baoding and the southern city of Xiamen. It began including more end-users the trials in these cities in early November.

The confirmation that the TD-SCDMA trials are being expanded comes after several reports in the local media said China Mobile parent company, China Mobile, will build and test the networks in the five new cities. A news official at China Mobile said earlier Monday his department didn't have any information on such plans.

China Netcom Group, China Telecom and China Mobile were involved in building the trial networks in the earlier phase of the trials.

In December, the state-run China Daily quoted Minister of Information Industry Wang Xudong as saying 3G licensing will happen "very soon," fueling market expectations China would issue 3G licenses shortly.

The expansion of the trial may dash such hopes, as some analysts have said it could be a way of giving TD-SCDMA time to mature into a stronger alternative to Wideband CDMA and CDMA2000 - two 3G standards used globally - before formal licenses are issued.