UTStarcom, Inc., a global leader in IP access networking and services, today announced that China's Ministry of Information Industry (MII) has selected the company to conduct official field trials of its 3G W-CDMA solution in Beijing with China Netcom.

The selection follows UTStarcom's superior performance in the phase one and phase two of MII's MTNet lab testing from June 2001 to August 2003.

The outdoor field trials, conducted by the MII's Research Institute of Telecommunications Transmission (RITT) and 3G Technical Trial Expert Group (3GTEG), were officially announced in November 2003, with testing slated to begin in February 2004. The trial requires each participating vendor to provide a 3GPP-compliant commercial system, including a Radio Access Network with wide geographic coverage, and a Core Network with a full complement of commercial network features.

From June 2001 through August 2003, UTStarcom participated in the first two phases of the MTNet lab testing, which consisted of indoor technical tests of 3GPP compliance, interface interoperability among different vendors, and various functions and features. The upcoming outdoor trials are expected to last approximately one year and will focus on performance, stability, wide-area RF testing, as well as commercial applications on commercial terminals. A total of twelve W-CDMA system vendors/partnerships will participate in the field trials. The outdoor trials are open to all operators, which must provide base station sites and backhaul transport facilities. The results of all the systems in all the trial sites will be made available to all operators when testing is complete.