China’s homegrown technology, TD-SCDMA, may not enjoy the kind of traction its proprietors dream.
Datang Mobile Communications Equipment, one of TD-SCDMA’s major supporters, fears the technology will not be chosen by the country’s biggest carrier, China Mobile Communications.
“As the world’s largest GSM operator, for China Mobile to choose W-CDMA is, I think, the logical choice for its technical evolution,” said Tang Ru’an, chief operating officer (COO) of Datang Mobile.
This likely inevitably pushes the technology to the fringe, while other main protocols, like W-CDMA and cdma2000, ride the market.
China Mobile covers about 70 percent of Chinese wireless users. A decision not to adopt TD-SCDMA would force the technology to scramble for part of the remaining 30 percent, indicating the technology’s sway may dwindle in other countries.
The Chinese government has been the major backer. Other companies, including Datang, Siemens, Motorola, Ericsson and Lucent Technologies, have shown an interest in the protocol.
With China Mobile possibly out of the running to implement the technology, two fixed-line carriers have become prime candidates to adopt the technology-China Telecom Group and China Netcom Group.
But every decision about the deployment of the technology hangs on the government’s issuance of licenses, which is expected later this year or early 2004.
“It’s a cool technology,” said Peter Jarich, senior analyst with Current Analysis. “But it may not be deployed outside China.” However, Jarich noted that the Chinese population, which is by far the biggest in the world, still provides profitable potential for TD-SCDMA supporters.
With a population of about 1.2 billion people, even a fraction of China’s mobile customers still dwarfs populations of some other countries combined. So even if the technology fails politically, it could provide revenue for its backers. But fewer vendors may be willing to invest in and benefit from the technology if it fails to be adopted outside of China, Jarich said.
Siemens has invested significantly in it and has expressed confidence in its future. Three months ago, the trio of Datang Mobile, Royal Philips Electronics and Samsung entered a joint venture to deliver a TD-SCDMA chipset and reference design, which they hope to make available by 2004.
“We strongly believe that our collaboration . both at the forefront of their respective fields, will accelerate the commercialization of TD-SCDMA and thus contribute to the development of the TD-SCDMA industry,” said Zhou Huan, president of Datang in January.
Datang also entered a separate partnership with Tektronix to provide test and measurement equipment for the technology.
The Chinese government would not have allocated significant spectrum for the technology if it was not important, said Florian Kreutz, press manager at Siemens Information and Communication Mobile. He explained the industry has picked up interest in TD-SCDMA both locally and internationally.
Kreutz said it is still the preferred protocol from a capacity point of view, adding that W-CDMA makes better marketing sense.
“We’ll offer both,” he said. “We’ll offer what the market demands.”
The potential windfall from TD-SCDMA has put Datang at loggerheads with Qualcomm over intellectual property rights. Qualcomm claims its CDMA technology is part of TD-SCDMA and it has a right to royalties, but Datang disagrees. GW
