Moving on its promise to step up promotion of Time Division Multiple Access technology worldwide, the Universal Wireless Communications Consortium said it recently met with Chinese government officials to promote TDMA technology.
“This was an introductory meeting for different organizations in China to reintroduce China with TDMA and the new developments,” said Chris Pearson, vice president of marketing for the UWCC. “The timing was right for us. The reason we went was because it looks like China will open up its telecommunications market.”
The Chinese mobile-phone market is dominated by Global System for Mobile communications technology, but the Chinese government in recent months has allowed GSM operator China Unicom, the competitor to telecommunications giant China Telecom, to roll out Code Division Multiple Access technology. The UWCC sees signs that China is softening to multiple technologies.
The UWCC believes it has a strong story to sell internationally now that the organization has teamed up with the North American GSM Alliance to collaborate on voice interoperability.
TDMA/GSM handsets should be commercially available by mid-2000. TDMA and GSM carriers also are working toward the same high-speed data third-generation solution called EDGE, and the UWCC has an agreement with the European Telecommunications Industry Association to develop EDGE specifications.
These two projects interested the Ministry of Information Industry, the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation as well as Chinese telecommunications firms, said Pearson. A GSM/
TDMA handset would give users the capability to roam on TDMA technology’s extensive footprint in North and South America, he said.
“Of course it would be great if TDMA was able to compete as a third wireless technology, but even if it’s not approved or accepted for deployment, there is an opportunity for handsets.”
This is the first time any official UWCC delegation has met with Chinese officials, said Pearson. Executives from TDMA carriers AT&T Wireless Services Inc., SBC Communications Inc., BellSouth Cellular Corp. and Rogers Cantel were part of the delegation.
“This is the first step,” said Pearson. “There needs to be a lot of education and awareness.”
The UWCC stepped up its efforts to promote TDMA technology around the world earlier this year following the CDMA Development Group’s success in working to open up the Chinese market to CDMA technology. UWCC admitted it has always been a silent association pushing ahead with its own agendas.
This year the association hired a regional director to handle the Latin America market and plans to place someone in the Asia-Pacific region to step up lobbying efforts and gain access to government decision makers.
The UWCC grew concerned earlier this year about the U.S. Commerce Department’s role in pushing China-the world’s largest telecommunications opportunity-to commercialize rival CDMA technology. It continues to remind policy makers that whenever CDMA technology is mentioned in trade talks, TDMA technology should be included as well. The Commerce Department has denied any CDMA favoritism, saying it is prodding all governments to open their markets to multiple technologies.
