Guangdong launched CDMA1X
XINHUA ECONOMIC NEWS SERVICE
January 8, 2003
GUANGZHOU, January 8
[[ By all indications, this was penned late last year. ]]
With most of the CDMA1X network construction completed recently, the province decided to launch a kind of CDMA1X data service, named "Color E", as a trial of the CDMA1X services that China Unicom will launch nationwide next year. As there are already a few foreign and domestic cellphones capable of CDMA1X available to the public, sources with Guangdong Unicom believed the gate to CDMA1X is unlatched now and all it needs is a little push from the top authority.
In fact, since the beginning of the month, a few hundred relationship customers and company workers of China Unicom have been using CDMA1X network, all their CDMA1X cellphones and data communication are almost free during the trial period. Two districts in Guangzhou are covered now and the trial price is 0.15 yuan per minute for "Color E". To ensure a successful service of CDMA1X, Guangdong Unicom has signed contracts with a dozen service providers (SP) on providing data contents to the network. The billing system has been established and SPs will begin to earn money from the beginning of next year. The public access net through "Color E" will be available from the beginning of next year and users will be charged at 0.15 yuan per minute.
China Unicom started to upgrade its CDMA 95A network to CDMA1X since the middle of this year. Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and other major cities will begin CDMA1X services at the beginning of next year. The data transmission speed during testing will reach 100 Kbps, compared with only 14.4 Kbps of CDMA 95A. After the successful promotion of CDMA by giving cellphones for free or at a very low cost, China Unicom has rapidly expanded its CDMA user base to nearly 7 million now. President Wang Jianzhou said, "China Unicom will compete with China Mobile on data services rather than prices." |
