ALAMEDA, Calif.-Internet Protocol networking vendor UTStarcom launched a service allowing Chinese wireless users to send and receive text messages between carriers, the company announced Monday, furthering the competition between the country’s pure mobile carriers and limited mobility providers.
The new offering allows Personal Access System subscribers on both China Telecom’s and China Netcom’s wireless local loop networks to send text messages between each other. More than 33 million people subscribe to PAS service, which is a limited mobility service that competes with mobile offerings from China Mobile and China Unicom.
“UTStarcom was very pleased to be involved in the initiative with China Netcom and China Telecom to make SMS interoperable between the two operators’ PAS networks,” said Simon Le, senior vice president of sales for UTStarcom China. “Achieving SMS interoperability between China Telecom and China Netcom’s networks is crucial to the success of PAS in the future as mobile operators continue to cut service costs to compete for subscribers.”
