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To: AnnaInVA who wrote (73383)	6/6/2000 8:04:00 AM
From: William Hunt	Respond to of 152472

China's Century Mobile Starts Service In Tianjin Dow Jones Newswires BEIJING -- A third mobile telecommunications operator has launched services in one of China's largest cities, creating new competition for the two state-run giants that now control the industry, state media and company officials said Tuesday. Century Mobile Communication Corp., a government-run company, has officially launched its service in Tianjin, a municipality southeast of Beijing, which is home to about 9.6 million people, a company official said, confirming a report by the official Xinhua News Agency. "We began service on May 17," said the official in Century Mobile's Tianjin office, who asked not to be named. China's government has so far licensed only two mobile telecoms companies: China Mobile Communications Corp. and China United Telecommunications Corp., or China Unicom. A third company, the army-run Great Wall Telecom, was granted permission to run trial networks in four cities. Those networks employ the CDMA technology developed by the U.S. Qualcomm Corp. (QCOM). Networks run by Unicom and China Mobile use the competing European GSM standard. China's government has been trying to restructure Great Wall and transfer its networks out of military control. Century Mobile appears to be part of that process. While its exact relationship with the People's Liberation Army remains unclear, a number of nonmilitary companies are backing the company, including Beijing Zhongguangcun Technology Development Ltd. Century Mobile's Tianjin service uses one of Great Wall's experimental CDMA networks, which a company official said required the PLA's okay. "We received permission (for this network) from the Beijing Military Command," said an engineer at Century Mobile's Tianjin office, who declined to be named. It's less clear how Century Mobile's new Tianjin service is viewed by another powerful government department, the Ministry of Information Industry, which regulates the telecoms sector. Asked about the Tianjin service, an MII spokesman said the CDMA network "is still in the trial phase." "We have not issued a third license" for mobile service, said Wang Lijian, vice director of the MII's news office. Even if it is allowed to continue its service, Century Mobile's Tianjin network doesn't appear to compete directly with China Mobile's listed subsidiary, China Telecom (Hong Kong) Ltd. (CHL). That company controls mobile networks in six other provinces in China's south and east. Still, rumors of a potential rival have hurt China Telecom (Hong Kong) shares before. Word of mounting competition could also damage sentiment for an initial public offering by China Unicom later this month, which the company hopes will raise at least US$4 billion. But wider commercial use of the trial CDMA networks could be good news for some U.S. companies that back the technology standard. Qualcomm and others have been pushing China to adopt CDMA. But Unicom, which had planned to start a new CDMA network this summer, has abandoned plans for current versions of CDMA, saying it will wait until a new version is ready in two to three years. The news helped drive Qualcomm shares down 7% Monday. BEST WISHES BILL