InterDigital Inc (IDCC)

[nieves]

3G Licenses' Issuing Schedule on Going


BEIJING, Jan 28, 2003 (SinoCast via COMTEX) -- On January 20, 2003, the 3G
Planning Expert Committee founded by Information Office of the Ministry of
Information Industry submitted three issuing schemes of 3G mobile communications
licenses to the State Council for approval.

Experts suggested that China Mobile, China Unicom, China Telecom, and China
Netcom could receive one license respectively.

The first scheme is to let carriers choose one of 3G standards according their
cost and prospect. The second scheme is to issue TD-SCDMA to China Telecom and
China Netcom, WCDMA and CDMA2000 for China Mobile and China Unicom respectively.
The third is to allow China Telecom and China Netcom to choose freely, but the
two carriers must use TD-SCDMA as network standard in some areas.

As for the issuing date of 3G licenses, it is undecided. Because the 3G-oriented
multimedia short massages is still not mature, so experts believe that the
licenses should issue by 2004, but it will depend on the State Council's
decision. An executive of the Management Bureau of Radio Frequency says the
bureau need to allocate the frequency carefully, if the State Government issued
3G licenses in the near future, but up to now, the bureau has not been informed
on this issue.

An executive from the Information Office says the issue of 3G licenses will
depend on the testing on 3G conducted by Datang Group.


From Source: China News page 1, Monday, January 27, 2003
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Copyright (C) 2003 SinoCast, All rights reserved

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KEYWORD: BEIJING
INDUSTRY KEYWORD: Marketing
Investment
SUBJECT CODE: Computers, Telecom and Information Technology

(Wall Street)





Daniel Nieves