Tuesday, September 19, 2000
TELECOMS
Mainland plan nears fruition for Qualcomm
ANH-THU PHAN in San Diego
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China Unicom, the mainland's second-largest mobile-phone carrier, is expected to go ahead with its plans to build a
network based on the present generation of code division multiple access (CDMA) technology.
Qualcomm chairman Irwin Jacobs expects Beijing authorities to approve the licensing of Qualcomm's technologies to
mainland manufacturers, which will provide the equipment for China Unicom.
The approval could come within a month, he said.
In February, Qualcomm and China Unicom announced Unicom's choice of CDMA software and chip sets developed by
the San Diego company to create a network supporting 10 million users. Since then, media reports have raised doubts
about Unicom's intention to go through with the agreement and doubts about regulatory support for such a network.
Echoing remarks reportedly made last week by Ministry of Information Industry official Wu Jichuan, Mr Jacobs said he
believed Unicom would go ahead with the network, to be based on Qualcomm's IS-95 architecture.
IS-95 equipment - considered to be "second generation" in terms of mobile-phone technology - is used mainly to support
voice services and has been in use since 1995, when Hong Kong become the site of the first commercial deployment.
"I am not about to announce anything, but I hear from the people in Beijing that it appears we are about to get official
word," Mr Jacobs said.
In addition to the agreement with Unicom, manufacturing licensees for Qualcomm include Huawei Technology, one of the
mainland's largest makers of telecommunications equipment.
The direction third-generation mobile phone development will take on the mainland is undecided, since Unicom and China
Mobile, the largest operator there, have yet to commit to a third-generation standard.
Qualcomm is pushing the CDMA2000 standard. By contrast, some European equipment makers are behind WCDMA, an
alternative which is based on CDMA, but Mr Jacobs says it is not yet ready for deployment.
Another standard, TD-SCDMA, which is under joint development by mainland manufacturer Datang and Germany's
Siemens, recently won approval from the International Telecommunications Union for use in third-generation networks.
At stake for Qualcomm and its competitors are billions of dollars worth of licensing fees and equipment sales in a
mobile-phone market considered among the world's largest and fastest-growing.
Qualcomm's 1xMC technology, which is part of the company's CDMA2000 range and lifts data capacity of an IS-95
network about 30 times, has been installed by SK Telecom network in South Korea.
The company's agreement with Huawei includes the development of 1xMC. However, Mr Jacobs declined to specify
whether this would be among the Qualcomm technologies he was expecting to gain official approval. |
