China Unicom has selected Siemens to equip its CDMA network for media streaming.

As the general contractor, the mobile communication group at Siemens (Siemens mobile) will be supplying a complete solution for audio and video services, including video portal and charging system. This will enable the customers of China's second largest mobile provider to transfer video clips and songs from the China Unicom network to their mobile phones. In a first phase of the project, China Unicom intends to initially offer the first video services to around 400,000 pilot customers.

Under the terms of the contract, Siemens is integrating its media streaming and download solution into China Unicom's CDMA network and ensuring smooth interaction with all further connected systems, such as the video portal and the charging system. The solution is independent of the underlying network technology and supports all major second and third generation mobile standards, such as GSM, GPRS, EDGE, CDMA, TDMA, W-CDMA and CDMA2000. It allows videos and songs to either be viewed online (streaming) or downloaded to the mobile phone in the form of a file. With streaming, as opposed to downloading, users don't have to wait for the entire media file (audio or video) to transfer to the mobile phone before they can watch or listen to the contents. In addition, it means that live video broadcasts are also possible.