Telecom group offers China mobile standard
Posted at 6:50 a.m. PDT Friday, September 10, 1999
BEIJING, Sept 10 (Reuters) - An international consortium of
telecommunications firms said on Friday it had joined the battle for
China's potentially vast mobile phone market by offering a new
technology standard.
The Universal Wireless Communications (UWC) consortium met
Chinese officials and telecommunications firms this week to
promote the Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) standard,
UWC president Sheila Mickool told Reuters in an interview.
China has 22 million cellular phone subscribers, mainly using the European GSM standard, but
Beijing has said it is ready to adopt the rival U.S.-backed Code Division Multiple Access
(CDMA) standard.
Mickool said she was confident there was room for another player in the market.
``I would escalate our activities in China based on what I've seen and heard over the last few
days,' she said.
UWC is a non-profit international association of more than 100 carriers and vendors supporting
TDMA, including AT&T Wireless Services and BellSouth Cellular Corp of the United States.
TDMA is the dominant technology standard in the Americas, with 18.5 million subscribers at the
end of 1998, UWC said.
TDMA offered greater capacity and flexibility and the ability to switch wireless users automatically
between analogue and digital channels without disruption to service, said UWC vice president of
marketing Chris Pearson.
But more significantly, it was an open standard -- with no patent -- and would soon be compatible
with GSM (Global System for Mobile communications) networks, he said.
From the second half of 2000, a single mobile phone would be able to switch automatically
between a GSM network in China and a TDMA network in Brazil, for example, he said.
``There's an opportunity, even if they (China) don't deploy TDMA, to be involved in the process
of its development and manufacturing of the telephones, Pearson said.
``Because there is no IPR (intellectual property rights) issue, there is also a possibility that it would
be good for the manufacturing development and economic development of China.'
Pearson said UWC hoped to avoid the growing pains of CDMA in China.
Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji told U.S. officials in March Beijing would allow China Unicom, one
of China's two telecommunications service providers, to build CDMA networks.
But two ministries have since barred the rollout, according to industry sources who said China
was trying to force firms into divulging CDMA technology in exchange for market access.
CDMA was developed by Qualcomm Inc of the United States, but Sweden's Ericsson bought its
infrastructure division in March this year.
U.S. officials have also said China was holding CDMA hostage until Washington and Beijing
reached a deal on entry to the World Trade Organisation (WTO).
Mickool said WTO entry would be helpful, but not crucial, to the success of TDMA in China.
She said she expected China to have 35 million cellphone subscribers by the end of 1999 and that
number would grow by at least one million per month over the next few years.
Meetings with the Ministry of Information Industry and Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic
Cooperation, and with telecommunications firms China Mobile and China Unicom had indicated
Beijing was interested in multiple standards, she said.
``We may be late, GSM may be the dominant platform and Unicom may have chosen CDMA,
but we have a groundswell of global support for GSM TDMA interoperability,' said Pearson. |
