EDGE muscle in on TD-SCDMA in China

March 12, 2007

Mobile subscribers recently detected Enhanced Date Rate for GSM Evolution (EDGE) signals in some parts of Beijing, which enabled some handset terminals to smoothly visit WAP web sites, send and receive multimedia messages, and that raised some people's concerns about the prospect of TD-SCDMA's application in the country's 3G network buildup.

EDGE, or by others called Enhanced GPRS (EGPRS), is generally classified as a 2.75G network technology that allows for increased data transmission rate and improved data transmission reliability than GSM and GPRS networks.

With just minor changes on GSM and GPRS networks, EDGE can work to provide high-speed mobile data transmission at a theoretically maximum rate of 473.6kbps, and a stable download speed of 190k, which is three to four times quicker than the current GPRS network.

As an EDGE network can be easily upgraded to a 3G network, it is often favored by carriers lingering on the way to 3G operations, in order to meet the demands for high-speed data businesses.

As early as in May last year, China Mobile's Guangdong branch took the lead in the country in offering the EDGE Internet-access service, and provided EDGE/GPRS dual-mode network card and corresponding service packages, hoping to compete with China Unicom's similar Internet service called CDMA 1X.

Now, since China Mobile, the nation's top mobile operator, has showed definite move to deploy the 3G network based on the country's homegrown technology TD-SCDMA, some people fear that its broader EDGE upgrade might be a blow to TD-SCDMA application, because the EDGE buildup may finally run to WCDMA- based 3G network.

If China Mobile built up a nation-wide EDGE network, and in this way seized the market room ahead of the participation of TD-SCDMA, it would be a fatal blow for TD-SCDMA standard from growing to be marketable, said Li Jinliang, a Chinese telecom expert.

China has not yet issued licenses for telecom operators to get into 3G businesses, neither has officially ruled which one the three 3G standards, WCDMA, CDMA2000 and TD-SCDMA, would be used for deployment of the nation's 3G network. But TD-SCDMA has been widely believed to be recommended by the regulator, as the country owns a considerable part of intellectual property rights in it.

China Mobile is reported to have launched a tens-of- billions bidding for TD-SCDMA equipments from this month, seen as a move to further gear up for the coming 3G operations.

Starting the TD-SCDMA application from now on from equipments bidding, it would bear fruit in the third quarter, in fields ranging from chips development, operation system, to the integration of terminal segments of the market, expressed a director of a member company of China's TD-SCDMA industrial alliance.

The TD-SCDMA platform would greatly help improve the country's design level in both hardware and software fields, and with another two years, the domestic telecom developers and manufactures were expected to make an essential breakthrough in a variety of sectors like terminal and system, and that was not only a matter of economical benefit, he expatiated.

There was no lack of top-ranking development and research talents, but many companies have been used to a queer way focusing only on import of things from outside, which is exactly a revealment of their lack of confidence, he added'