The China Daily quotes a senior government official as saying that China's home-grown standard for third generation (3G) wireless communications–TD-SCDMA–will be ready for deployment in mid-2005.
The technology's readiness will help decide when 3G licenses will be handed out in China, which has more than 300 million cellular subscribers. "I'm fully confident that a complete product lineup of TD-SCDMA will be ready for commercial use by next June," said Zhang Qi, director-general of the Ministry of Information Industry's Department of Electronics and Information Product Administration. "Operators' deployment of (3G) networks will not be delayed."
Zhang told China Daily that domestic manufacturers will launch at least five mobile phones based on TD-SCDMA "within five to six months." The makers include Lenovo, Ningbo Bird, Hisense and Amoisonic.