Satisfied with the progress made on the development of TD-SCDMA, China's National Development and Reform Commission, Ministry of Science and Technology and Ministry of Information Industry have decided to spend CNY500 million in support of further scaled tests that were initiated in February 2006.

These funds supplied by the government will mainly be used to buy equipment, particularly the core network and base stations involved in the test.

Local media reports that the construction of base stations for TD testing has been completed and the concerned manufacturers have begun working on debugging of the network. It is expected that TD numbers will be issued in November this year to about 20,000 beta users in Qingdao, Baoding and Xiamen, which have been the key areas of the testing.