Motorola is one of the leading developers of the rival CDMA2000 1x technology and also develops handsets for the European 3G system, UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunications System).
According to the TD-SCDMA Forum, a Chinese industry group, four 3G licenses are likely to be awarded by Beijing this year. Quoting academic Lu Tingjie, the group said licenses "would definitely be issued in 2003, most likely to China Telecom, China Netcom, China Mobile and China Unicom."
The TD-SCDMA Forum is led by China Mobile, China Telecom, China Unicom, Huawei, Motorola and Nortel, as well as Datang Group and Siemens, who are jointly developing the Time Division Synchronous Code Division Multiple Access standard.
Minister of Information Industry Wu Jichuan said last month that a decision on licences could not be made before the government considered new telecommunications legislation in March.
Many analysts have speculated that China would delay the roll-out of 3G networks until at least the end of next year in order to give the Chinese standard a chance to compete with the European UMTS and the North American CDMA2000 1x standard. Both foreign standards are already being deployed or tested in a number of markets, including Hong Kong and Taiwan.
China is understood to favor TD-SCDMA because the government can influence the standards process. It would also obviate the need to pay licence fees to overseas developers.
Speaking during Motorola's inaugural HelloMoto Developers' Conference in Shanghai yesterday, a senior Motorola executive told the South China Morning Post it could be ready to supply back-end TD-SCDMA services to customers within months.
Executive vice-president Eugene Delaney said Motorola was conducting research and development on the technology.
Motorola would not "be starting from scratch but...it would take a certain number of months to finalise the technology," he said.
He added that the company was not working with the government on the system.
"A decision for us to invest heavily in TD-SCDMA would be driven almost exclusively by the desires of our customers. So we don't have strong opinions on the pros and cons of the technology," Delaney said.
"What we're doing is making investments in the technologies that our customers tell us they need to be successful in the marketplace."
He said delays in introducing 3G networks could benefit China, which would be able to learn from other countries' experiences.
Copyright (c) 2003. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.
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