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Chinese 3G licenses likely in 2006, says industry exec

China's long-anticipated issue of licenses for 3G (third-generation) mobile telephone services could be coming next year, the head of a wireless industry trade association said on Friday.

http://computerworld.com.sg/ShowPage.aspx?pagetype=2&articleid=1767&pubid=3&issueid=54

Martyn Williams
IDG News Service\Tokyo Bureau
Updated: Jul 01, 2005 06:05 PM


China's long-anticipated issue of licenses for 3G (third-generation) mobile telephone services could be coming next year, the head of a wireless industry trade association said on Friday.

"It looks to me like it will probably be delayed beyond this year," said Perry LaForge, chair and executive director of the CDMA Development Group, which promotes the CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) wireless standard. LaForge was speaking to reporters in Japan after attending a 3G wireless conference in Beijing earlier this week.

The wireless industry has been eagerly awaiting China's issue of the licenses and the decision by carriers over which standard to adopt for several years. The government has never specified a time-frame for the licenses nor said how many it will issue, but that hasn't stopped these matters becoming the subject of regular rumors in the industry. At present many are anticipating three licenses issued with enough time to let China have 3G networks up and running in time for the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.

LaForge thinks the issue may be timed to coincide with the availability of TD-SCDMA (Time Division Synchronous CDMA), a 3G standard largely developed in China. That's still under development and a Chinese newspaper report in June said trials of the system went "badly."

"I see China trying to make some progress with TD-SCDMA and it's taking them longer than they thought," said LaForge.

However, delaying the licenses so that TD-SCDMA is ready to be deployed could hurt Chinese telecommunications companies in their bids for contracts overseas, he said.

"China has a chance to expand its export business. But if the Chinese wait too long they will lose the opportunity to build up exports," he said. "It's a fine balancing act."

He said he believes the licenses will be issued in 2006 and that they will be evenly distributed to one carrier using TD-SCDMA, one using the CDMA2000 1x standard that LaForge's group promotes, and one using WCDMA (Wideband CDMA).