Datang to unveil 3G handsets
17/1/2003 14:52
Datang Telecom Technology Co Ltd. is on track to roll out China's
first 3G mobile phone in one year, based on a 3G chip it expects to unveil later
this year, announced Tang Ru'an, yesterday, the company's chief executive
officer.
Datang will cooperate with the world's fourth largest chipmaker
ST Group to develop the chip, which remains the main sticking point in Datang's
development of the 3G CDMA (Code-Division Multiple Access) technology
TD-SCDMA.
ST confirmed yesterday the partnership with Datang, and seems
confident that it can complete the development as scheduled.
Before
teaming up with ST, Datang had recruited help from Dutch telecom giant Philips
for 3G mobile phone development.
"If it goes smoothly, the chip will be
ready as early as this August and we'll use it in commercial phone production
starting the first half of next year," Tang said.
He said it will be a
double-mode chip, enabling the phone user to switch between the 3G CDMA network
and the currently widely used 2G GSM network (global system of mobile
telecommunication).
"Mobile phone users will find it convenient to use the 3G
telecom system, and we'll attract more 3G users," Tang said.
Analysts say
if the project is successful, it will encourage Chinese telecom operators to use
Datang's TD-SCDMA as the 3G technology standard.
Datang is the developer
and advocator of WCDMA, the only all-China-patented 3G technology. The other two
widely adopted 3G CDMA standards in the world are European WCDMA and US
CDMA2000.
Eight heavyweights in China's telecommunications industry
launched an industry alliance last month in Beijing to voice their support for
the TD-SCDMA standard.
The companies include ZTE Corp., Huawei
Technologies Co., Southern High-Tech Co Ltd., Legend Group, Holley Group, CCID
Data, Capital Group and Datang.
China's telecom authority has also
demonstrated its intention to promote TD-SCDMA.
In its recent frequency
plotting for mobile technologies, the Ministry of Information Industries
assigned frequencies of 100MHz in FDD (Frequency Division Duplex) to TD-SCDMA,
compared with a combined 60MHz for WCDMA and CDMA200.
In the European
Union, TD-SCDMA was assigned frequencies of 35MHz in FDD.
FDD is a
technique for supporting two-way radio communication using paired radio
frequencies. This technique is ideal for high volume mobile voice traffic and is
the traditional cellular radio spectrum allocation format.
Jane Chen / Shanghai Daily news
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