China to roll out 3G before 2008, says official

[HenryTo]

Luckily, the U.S. is still a couple of years ahead of China when it comes to 3G adoption. Current U.S. plans are for users to start adopting 3G in early 2006 and for widespread adoption at the end of 2006.
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China to roll out 3G before 2008, says official

May 19, 2005

(BBC Monitoring via NewsEdge) The Chinese government will start providing 3G services before 2008, Minister of Information Wang Xudong said.

The government’s move to start 3G licensing has been one of the top concerns of the information industry in the country. Wang said the licensing depends on the maturity of the technology and of the Chinese telecom market.

"Over the past few years, some countries and regions issued 3G licenses to telecom operators. China will learn from their experiences," Wang said.

Wang said China has always paid a lot of attention to the development of 3G, and that it will continue to keep pace with growth trends for the technology and will devote great efforts to research and development in this respect.

China has worked out a frequency program for 3G and organized the largest experiment with the technology worldwide, involving some world-class manufacturers and operators. The country has also done much work to commercialize 3G technology.

China’s own TD-SCDMA currently competes with W-CDMA developed in Europe and cdma2000 developed in the US.

According to the Ministry of Information Industry, China will hammer out a special plan for the development of 3G sector before the end of this year.