To mark the official start of the joint activities for 3G/TD-SCDMA mobile communication technology, Siemens Information and Communication Mobile (Siemens mobile) and Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. today signed the contract for the formation of the joint venture.
Both companies expressed that they join forces to promote the upcoming 3G mobile communication standard TD-SCDMA. The joint venture will develop, manufacture and market TD-SCDMA technology, for which both companies are together investing more than USD 100 million. The new company will be based in Beijing. Siemens mobile will hold 51 percent of the joint venture, and the Chinese telecommunications company Huawei Technologies 49 percent.
Today's signing officially launches the joint development activities of Siemens and Huawei. Siemens mobile already transferred its global R&D, marketing and sales responsibilities for TD-SCDMA to Beijing. Siemens mobile is contributing more than 200 employees, Huawei around 100. In several months time, the joint venture will have 350 employees. In addition to the company headquarters in Beijing, engineers will also work on the development of infrastructure products in Shanghai.
The mobile standard TD-SCDMA, which complements GSM and W-CDMA, is currently being put to the test in several trial networks. The Chinese Ministry of Information Industry allocated a 155 MHz spectrum to TD-SCDMA in October 2002, thus paving the way for the commercial use of the standard in China. Both partners in the joint venture hope that TD-SCDMA will succeed in the Chinese market and convince operators in other countries to adopt the standard. Manufacturing and marketing of the standard will, however, initially be focused on China. The technology can be operated either as a standalone network or used to supplement GSM or UMTS networks in order to cope with heavy data traffic. The aim is to offer the first products of the joint venture in the coming months and to participate in the official 3G trials with operators set up under the governance of the Ministry of Information Industry (MII) within this year.