Jane Chen / Shanghai Daily news

In advance of China's pending issue of 3G business licenses, seven more telecom equipment manufacturers have joined the alliance of China's only self-developed 3G telecom CDMA technology TD-SCDMA (Time Division - Synchronous Code Division Multiple Access) standard, today's Beijing Morning Post reported.
The seven, UTStarcom (China) Ltd, Alcatel Shanghai Bell Co., Ltd, Hubei Zhongyou Technology Industry & Commerce Co Ltd, DBTEL Incorporated, Zhongshan Communications Equipment Co ltd, Beijing Zhong Chuang Telecom Test Co Ltd and Taiwan's phone brand OKwap, have increased the alliance to 21 members.
Analysts say all seven new members have strong research and development capabilities and invest heavily in the commercial production of 3G technology.  They regard their participation a signal of the telecom industry's mutual recognition that China will very likely select TD-SCDMA as the 3G standard and encourage a prosperous development of this self-developed technology. 
In October 2002, eight heavyweights in China's telecom industry launched the alliance in Beijing to promote TD-SCDMA.  A second group of six firms joined the alliance a year later.
The original group included ZTE Corp, Huawei Technologies Co, Southern High-Tech Co Ltd, Legend Group, Holley Group, CCID Data , Capital Group and Datang Telecom Technology Co Ltd, developer of the TD-SCDMA standard.
Along with European WCDMA and US CDMA2000, TD-SCDMA is one of three key 3G CDMA standards currently adopted in the world.