Hiccups

TD-SCDMA proponents reaffirmed their support for the Chinese 3G technology last month, following reports of technical problems during tests. Chen Jin-qiao, director of the Institute of Telecommunication Research, a division of the Mll's China Academy of Telecommunication Research, said he was not disappointed with the results of the trial, revealed in early November at a 3G conference in Beijing, in which the technology showed problems with network stability and core reliability.

"There are always problems in developing any standard," he told Telecom Asia. "Once you commercialize it, you can deal with the problems one by one."

Chen said he expects TD-SDMA products could see commercial launch in the second half of 2005, and that, assuming a theoretical commercial launch of all three 3G technologies by the end of next year, TD-SCDMA could account for 20% of the 3G market and 25% of revenues by 2010.

That said, he took pains to caution that it was still up to the Mll, which has yet to make any final decision on a time framework for rolling out 3G in China.

"It's not just about TD-SCDMA, it's also about reforming the market, ensuring competitiveness and so many other complicated factors," he said. "That's why the Chinese government is looking at other policies to help further development."

One possible policy under consideration is supply incentives such as tax credits to vendors developing TD-SCDMA to shorten their time cycles.

The TD-SCDMA trial results have led to speculation that China will delay its 3G licensing plans further until TD-SCDMA is ready. In early November, the China Academy of Telecommunications Research proposed three separate 3G networks for China--one each for WCDMA, cdma2000 and TD-SCDMA--with the added recommendation that the government wait for TD-SCDMA technology to be improved before issuing 3G licenses.

Foreign participation

Chen said that part of TD-SCDMA's problems was the lack of strong foreign participation in its development. This was supported by George Huang, VP of wireless networks for Greater China at Nortel Networks.

"We need more people to join in to develop the technology in different areas--handsets, chipsets and test equipment," Huang said. "We need more heavyweights. We're happy to see Alcatel come in. We'd like to see more come in."

Last month, Alcatel Shanghai Bell and Datang Mobile announced a partnership to drive TD-SCDMA development.

Huang said press reports that the MII trials showed TD-SCDMA was well behind W-CDMA and cdma2000 "should be no surprise," pointing out that cdma2000 and W-CDMA have been commercial since 2000 and 2001, respectively.

"TD-SCDMA won't catch up to cdma2000 and W-CDMA as fast as some would like, but look at the number of vendors developing it."

The TD-SCDMA Industry Association, only claims 16 members, including Nortel.

Huang says any delay in issuing 3G licenses may not be all that long.

"The key window to me is, if we can deploy commercial TD-SCDMA in the third quarter of 2006, it should be okay," he said. "That will allow for another year to fine tune the system before the Olympics in Beijing in 2008."

In response to queries from Telecom Asia about the TD-SCDMA results, Aicatel reaffirmed its belief in TD-SCDMA in a statement, saying the company was "confident that TD-SCDMA terminals will soon be widely available," and that it expects the first TDSCDMA products from its Datang partnership to be delivered to the Chinese market by June 2005.

COPYRIGHT 2004 Advanstar Communications, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2005 Gale Group