Nokia just announced a new GSM network expansion in China, worth nearly 50 million dollars. The Polish GSM network deal announced earlier today was worth nearly 170 million bucks.
That South China Morning Post article is signaling GSM's final triumph in Asia - China is shifting the discussion to third generation technologies, because it does not want to debate the second generation situation anymore. The case is closed.
I'm impressed by the way the Chinese are finessing the situation. USA can deny China the WTO membership and American trade negotiators are using this threat to force China into favoring American companies (which is the kind of anti-competition strong-arm tactics that WTO was founded to prevent, ironically enough). But China doesn't want to endanger the success of GSM in China by pouring billions of dollars into CDMA networks, which it has little use for. The most likely solution? China concedes to accept CDMA2000 as a third generation technology, continues the GSM expansion and puts the current CDMA standard IS-95 on ice.
Let's hope this possible compromise is enough to prevent further trade friction. It should be noted that Finland has accepted CDMA2000 as a third generation technology as well. The four Finnish 3G licenses were announced last week - and all the companies are choosing W-CDMA. There simply are no operators willing to risk CDMA2000 at this point. The W-CDMA development has already resulted in half a dozen companies having handset prototypes and trial networks in operation.
Nokia is following up the WAP phone announcement by making public several agreements with key mobile operators in Europe and Asia. This means that when 7110 becomes available, it is supported from the start by enough WAP-friendly operators to give it a solid launch.
"Nokia on allekirjoittanut sopimuksen kahdeksan operaattorin kanssa. Näitä ovat suomalaiset Radiolinja ja Sonera, Saksan D-Mobil, Ruotsin
Europolitan, Norjan NetCom, Englannin Orange, Hong Kongin Telecom
Mobile Service ja New World Mobility. Aiemmin Nokia on kertonut
julkisuuteen Ranskan France Telecom Mobilesin ja Ruotsin Telia Mobilen
kanssa tekemistään koekäyttösopimuksista. -Uutistoimisto Startel"
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