China’s telecom giants are already formulating plans on the news that 3G licenses could be released as early as the end of 2008.
By Staff Reporter Zhang Boling
From Caijing Online
The government’s 4-trillion-yuan stimulus plan might bump up the release of 3G licenses to before the end of 2008.
At the GSMA 2008 Asia mobile telecommunication meeting, president of China Unicom Co. Chang Xiaobing said now that China’s telecommunications industry has completed its lengthy reorganization, the release of 3G licenses and related monitoring policies will soon follow. Unicom might be able to obtain a 3G permit as early as the end of 2008.
An experienced telecommunication analyst told Caijing that the main factor delaying the release of 3G licenses is TD-SCDMA, China’s homegrown 3G standard. The government would like to wait until TD-SCDMA becomes a viable option for consumers, but that could take months.
In its testing phase, China’s standard revealed a brier patch of problems, said the analyst. He estimated that TD-SCDMA would not reach maturity until the middle of next year. “However, the recent 4-trillion-yuan stimulus plan might accelerate the release of 3G license,” he said.
The State Council announced the new stimulus package on November 5, with a stipulation that a 300 to 400 billion yuan from the fund would be put toward development of China’s high-tech industry. The telecommunication sector is the pioneer of the Chinese high tech, and according to the analyst Caijing spoke to, it also the only one that could compete with foreign industries.
Chang said the release of 3G licenses will encourage carriers to invest in device production, and thus have a positive effect on the domestic economy. Unicom itself plans to invest more money into development of 3G networks and related businesses.
