From: Ruffian Tuesday, Sep 19, 2000 1:30 AM ET
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.
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