CHINA'S BRIGHT STAR
By Kathy Wilhelm
Issue cover-dated March 29, 2001
Even if TD-SCDMA finishes last in the 3G
sweepstakes, that won't spell the end of China's
chances to shine in mobile technology. Other Chinese
companies are emerging with ideas for improving
tomorrow's cellphone networks. One such bright star is
Beijing-based LinkAir Communications. Founded in
late 1999 by three Chinese entrepreneurs, it managed
to round up $26.5 million in U.S. venture-capital
funding before investors' views of telecoms soured.
LinkAir's LAS-CDMA technology (it stands for
large-area synchronized code-division multiple access)
has generated significant industry buzz for a very simple
reason: It just might save the industry's expensive bet on
3G, or third-generation, networks.
Operators around the world are running out of
spectrum as mobile-phone use soars. The airwaves will
be even more jammed as 3G networks roll out over the
next few years. Operators are sinking billions of dollars
into 3G licences, promising consumers a rich stream of
real-time information, games and video to their
handsets.
Enter LinkAir. "What we claim is we can increase the
capacity of a 3G system by three to six times. We call
ourselves 3G-plus," President and Chief Executive
Officer Zheng Ting says.
One of the big limits on system capacity is the need to
prevent calls from interfering with one another. Zheng
says the key LinkAir breakthrough is a new way of
coding transmissions that sharply reduces interference,
allowing more calls to be squeezed into the same
amount of radio spectrum. It's broadly similar to the
technology offered by U.S.-based Qualcomm, which
pioneered the concept of using code to distinguish
transmissions over the same band of spectrum. But
unlike Qualcomm's technology, Zheng says
LAS-CDMA is compatible with all existing mobile
networks as well as with all coming 3G systems.
Furthermore, it can be adopted as a relatively
inexpensive upgrade. "Operators are always looking for
an edge. If you can leapfrog today's technology into
something better, for not too much expense, you'll do
that," he says.
A team of experts from China's Ministry of Information
Industry, the telecoms regulator, conducted an outdoor
test of LAS-CDMA last October and were impressed
enough to introduce LinkAir to Chinese
telecoms-equipment makers. Zheng says one has
agreed to cooperate in a field trial in Shanghai in June,
and that the Ministry of Information Industry has
approved LinkAir's use of a band of spectrum for tests.
If all goes well, Zheng will then have solid data to take
to the international equipment makers that he needs to
manufacture his system.
This is where innovating in telecoms can be tricky for a
start-up. The big equipment makers prefer to come up
with their own technology in-house. "We've been hitting
scepticism about commercialization," admits Zheng.
"People say, 'How are you going to build the base
stations and build the handsets without a big vendor
behind you?'"
He says LinkAir has talked to all the major vendors and
also has approached Datang about wedding
LAS-CDMA and TD-SCDMA, but no one has bitten
yet. But David Ho, senior vice-president at Nortel
Networks in Beijing, says they're keeping an eye on
LinkAir. Indeed, U.S industry magazine Wireless Week
recently named LinkAir among three firms to watch in
telecoms.
Perhaps the most significant sign that LinkAir may be
onto something came last year when it lured a
well-known industry veteran, Vodafone Airtouch chief
scientist William Lee, to join as full-time chairman. Lee
brought much-needed industry credibility to the venture.
Indeed, LinkAir's founders were an unlikely trio: a
former bureaucrat, a professor and Zheng, a mainland
native then working at Sprint PCS in the U.S.
Zheng was visiting Beijing in 1999 when Zou Zuye, the
retired head of Beijing's Science and Technology
Commission turned venture capitalist, introduced him to
Li Daoben, a professor at Beijing Post and
Telecommunications University. Li already had invented
his new transmission code but needed help bringing it to
market.
"How often do you get a chance to be involved in a real
discovery?" asks Zheng. Not to mention the chance to
help make China a place to watch for telecoms
innovations.
feer.com |
