Unicom Plans China's Sole Qualcomm-Based
Phone Network, OD Says
By Eugene Tang
Shanghai, Sept. 4 (Bloomberg) -- China Unicom Ltd., the nation's No. 2 mobile
phone services operator, plans to run the country's only cellular network that
uses a U.S. standard called code-division multiple-access, or CDMA, the
Oriental Daily reported.
China's Ministry of Information Industry is still deciding whether to let Unicom
run its CDMA network on a so-called second- generation narrowband standard
or a new CDMA2000 technology that belongs to Qualcomm Inc. of the U.S.,
the Hong Kong newspaper cited unidentified telephone industry officials as
saying.
The Chinese government is likely to approve the second- generation
CDMAIS-95A standard while it negotiates on patent rights for the newer
CDMA2000 technology, which gives mobile users high-speed access to the
Internet, the newspaper reported.
China's government has yet to clarify whether the nation will build future
cellular phone networks using the European Global System for Mobile
Communications, or GSM, technology -- the standard for 98 percent of the
country's 51.7 million cellular phones -- or use Qualcomm Inc.'s CDMA
technology.
(Oriental Daily, Sept. 4, Page B2) |
