Three Factors Determine China's 3G Schedule

From CRIonline: What's Behind 3G Fever?

I. "The reshuffling of China's telecom companies is one of the important factors in the government's issuing of 3G licenses, ViceMinister of Information Industry Xi Guohua said at the Boao Forum for Asia in April. The ministry set the reshuffling as one of its major tasks for the year 2005, but no plan of reform has yet been made, said Xi. "

II. "It is the hope of both the Chinese government and the mobile communication industry to get rid of the high patent fees in the 3G market. Yet, even TD-SCDMA, China's homegrown 3G standard, has still to settle the patent issue through negotiation.
A report from the Telecom Academy under the Ministry of Information Industry shows that China's Datang Group, a major proponent of the TD-SCDMA standard, only holds 7 percent of TD-SCDMA's patent, Nokia 32 percent, Ericsson 23 percent and Siemens 11 percent.
According to ministry sources, negotiations with American company Qualcomm, owner of the property rights of CDMA, have been stagnant for more than a year due to the high patent fee charged by Qualcomm."

III. "The maturity of TD-SCDMA is another key factor determining China's 3G process. According to the government schedule, TD-SCDMAwill be ready for commercial use in June this year. The result of the test for commercial use to be published this September is alsoexpected to have a major influence over the 3G process."

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