TD-SCDMA ready to roll - says Ministry

September 21, 2005 - source: BWCS

The Chinese Ministry of Information Industry has spoken for the first time in public about the results of recent field trials of its home-grown TD-SCDMA standard. A spokesperson for the Ministry indicated that "Massive network building for third-generation mobile communications (3G) based on TD-SCDMA technology is feasible."

According to reports on the China Daily website, the announcement indicates that the technological barrier to launching a TD-SCDMA standard 3G network in China, has been removed. Quoting Wei Guiming, a senior engineer with the Telecoms Standard Institute of the Chinese Academy of Telecommunications Research, who had been speaking at the "3G in China Global Summit" the web-based news agency reported that TD-SCDMA technology has been tested and has shown that it can support large-scale network operations.

Addressing the summit, Guiming reported that the conclusion that TD-SCDMA was ready to be rolled out came about only after much detailed discussions among experts in the MII. This is the first time the MII has gone public on the results of TD-SCDMA tests.

Few telecoms analysts expect the government in China to issue 3G licences for either WCDMA or CDMA2000 operations before the domestically developed TD-SCDMA standard is fully up to scratch. So far it is estimated that the Chinese authorities have lavished over Yuan 1 billion (US$123 million) on the research and development of TD-SCDMA. While this may be small beer compared to the vast amount of investment that will be needed to bring 3G services to the masses in China, the government has gone too far down the home-grown road to turn back now.