China dual mode phone (PHS GSM WCDMA and GSM1x) info from article posted on UTSI board (chapq)
China- Dual-mode phones likely to find niche
Author: LI WEITAO,China Business Weekly staff
www1.chinadaily.com.cn
Snips>>>>
A Xiaolingtong terminal now typically sells for as little as 500 yuan (US$60).
Wu (UTSI Founder) said UTStarcom is now working on the research and development (R&D) of a dual-mode PHS/WCDMA phone.
"The PHS/WCDMA phone is expected to be available in 18 months," he said.
In another development, China Unicom has confirmed it is expecting to launch dual-mode GSM/CDMA service in mid-2004.
The carrier is in talks with Motorola, Samsung and LG for purchase of 300,000-500,000 of the required phones.
Unicom Chairman Wang Jianzhou said an average GSM/CDMA phone would probably cost 15-20 per cent more than average CDMA handsets.
Unicom statistics show that the company had 72 million GSM subscribers at the end of November.
That is near the limits of the capacity of its GSM networks.
As Unicom is striving to make its nascent CDMA networks profitable, analysts expect it will not expand its GSM network capacity very significantly.
"As it will involve the cost of replacing existing GSM phones, the question is, how big is the subscriber base for GSM/CDMA service? And will the handset vendors have the stimulus to tie up resources in such phones?" Zhang pointed out. (Zhang Ying, an analyst with telecoms consulting firm Analysis Consulting.
Subscribers to Unicom's GSM service are generally low-end users as it charges less than China Mobile's GSM service, as a result of a government-set charging system designed to support the weaker Unicom.
Wang Guoping, a telecoms analyst with China Galaxy Securities, said the dual-mode GSM/CDMA service would be "a good way out" for Unicom's GSM networks.
"It would help Unicom protect its GSM users from being taken away by China Mobile," he told China Business Weekly.
"There is an exodus of Unicom's GSM users, as the coverage of Unicom's GSM networks is inferior to that of China Mobile's GSM/GPRS networks."
Zhang expects Unicom will offer generous subsidies to kick-start the dual-mode GSM/CDMA market as it did to foster its CDMA service.
From another article Dr. IMJ was quoted with-
economictimes.indiatimes.com.
>>>>>>>>snip
“Talking about new handsets that would have both GSM/CDMA chips, Jacobs said they would hit the market next month, made by Samsung. He said these dual-mode, multi-frequency handsets will take a couple of years to be available at the entry level (price points).” |
