Intel Netbook

Intel is planning the promotion of TD-SCDMA Netbooks in the Chinese market in partnership with China Mobile.

This may be slightly difficult until TD-SCDMA gets widespread acceptance and coverage.

Intel plans to bundle its laptops with China Mobile’s 3G data services. Abroad, Acer’s netbooks have also been connected with 3G Internet access services but note, that was not using TD-SCDMA which, at the moment, is confined to China and is not, perhaps, working as well as it might.

Netbooks are just smallish computers and, indeed, this item is being written one.

Some PC makers expect that this low-price, small-sized laptop suitable for wireless Internet access will see its sales reach 15 million units in 2008.
Source: Trading Markets

TD-SCDMA models

China Mobile has cut the cost for its trial 3G services to near fixed-line phone rates to try and attract business, families and students.

China Mobile will gradually launch new packages, with the top rate cut of more than 50%, in the coming year. This is pretty official because China Mobile published a statement to this effect on the Website of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

The new packages will be available in ten cities with TD-SCDMA (time division-synchronous code division multiple access) networks including Beijing and Shanghai. The carrier has chosen Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Tianjin as the first cities with the new packages.

In the new business package, China Mobile will offer users 500 minutes of calls for RMB30, compared with the previous RMB88 600 minutes.

The TD-SCDMA rate is RMB 0.22 for first three minutes call and RMB 0.11 for following minute, lower than China Mobile’s 2G rate and similar to China Telecom’s fixed-phone rate.

Sandy Shen, a Shanghai-based analyst at Gartner Inc, a US-based IT research firm said, ‘It’s nice to have the cut rate but the key problem is the handset.’

Fewer than 10 TD-SCDMA models are available in the market though China Mobile said more handset makers are developing new models.
Source: Shanghai Daily

TD-SCDMA phone

The head of China Mobile, the world’s largest mobile phone group, said the country’s homegrown third generation mobile technology, TD-SCDMA, was ‘a few years behind’ other international standards because of problems with handsets.

(Which is interesting because although there has been much criticism of the handsets most of the complaints have been about the spottiness of the coverage and that is NOT a function of the design or build of the handset.)

China Mobile is expected to build its future 3G services on the TD-SCDMA standard, which is being developed in China while its  rivals are expected to adopt the European WCDMA and US’s CDMA2000 3G standards.

This puts China Mobile in a slightly tricky position and it is possible that the company will offer both systems in tandem.

The admission as to TD-SCDMA’s problems comes as two other mobile groups, China Unicom and China Telecom, are laying out their plans to challenge China Mobile.

China Mobile has spent RMB15 billion ($2billion) on trials using TD-SCDMA. More on this HERE.
Source: Financial Times

China Unicom goes mobile

China Unicom, the country’s second-largest wireless operator, aims to challenge China Mobile’s dominant position and win a third of the future users of the long-awaited third-generation (3G) mobile services.

Unicom announced the target after it said it would invest up to RMB100 billion ($16 billion) in the next two years to upgrade its network, with most of the money spent on the development of 3G.

Unicom is merging with fixed line operator China Netcom as part of Beijing’s state-orchestrated plan to reorganise the telecoms sector into three operators — each with wireless and fixed line services.

As part of the shake-up, China Telecom, currently the country’s biggest fixed-line operator, is taking over Unicom’s CDMA mobile business. Meanwhile, Unicom will continue to operate a bigger and more profitable GSM network.

Analysts said that Unicom’s target to grab a third of the 3G market was achievable because the company is expected to build its services on the widely-used and commercially-proven W-CDMA standard, offered by most European operators.
(Click HERE to read more on this).
Source: Financial Times

TD-SCDMA mobile

The Chinese government has given the green light to China Mobile to build a nationwide commercial trial network based on TD-SCDMA technology, the local 3G standard.

Whether China Mobile greeted the green light with unalloyed pleasure is open for debate.

A spokesman for the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology told the China Daily that the mobile operator had received approval to expand the network, currently operational in select cities, to national coverage.

However, he did not provide a time frame for when China Mobile would start the expansion. China Mobile started commercial trials of TD-SCDMA in eight cities in April, including Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin and Shenyang.

Analysts believe the ministry clearance underlines the government’s preference for 3G networks built on the TD-SCDMA standard. China Mobile has reportedly also been considering using WCDMA. Reported tests on TD-SCDMA seem to suggest that this technology still needs improvement.
Source: Telecom Paper