ALAMEDA, Calif.-UTStarcom Inc. said it successfully completed testing in China for its W-CDMA wireless soft switch. UTStarcom conducted tests of the gear at the MTNet labs with the Research Institute of Telecommunications Transmission, a division of the China Academy of Telecommunication Research.
The soft-switch testing analyzed the MovingMedia 8000’s processing capability, availability, stability and overall reliability in a configuration designed to support up to 100,000 subscribers in various traffic load situations. UTStarcom achieved more than 99.9-percent call success rate in all test cases. The UTStarcom system received special commendation for its “high processing power, high reliability and high availability” from the RITT testing officials.
The wireless industry is closely watching the lucrative Chinese market for its third-generation licensing decisions. The two main 3G standards, W-CDMA and CDMA2000, are expected to be deployed in the country, along with TD-SCDMA technology, which was developed in China and is unlikely to find a market outside the country. Last week, reports from China said TD-SCDMA technology performed poorly in initial tests.
“The high performance that UTStarcom’s W-CDMA IP-based core soft switch solution achieved in the R4 testing is a testament to the strength of our technology’s capabilities and an example of the company’s long-term commitment to developing a carrier-class 3G W-CDMA network for the China market,” said Hong Lu, chief executive officer of UTStarcom.
In 2001, UTStarcom was selected by China’s Ministry of Information Industry as one of 10 companies to participate in the initial 3G technical trials. The company successfully passed all of phase one and two of the trials, providing a complete 3GPP R99 compliant 3G W-CDMA system.
In December 2003, UTStarcom was selected to conduct official field trials of its 3G W-CDMA solution in Beijing with China Netcom, requiring that it provide a 3GPP-compliant commercial system, including a radio-access network with wide geographic coverage and a core network with a full complement of commercial network features. A year later, the company received a letter of certification from the 3G MTNet Trial Technical Group, giving UTStarcom’s W-CDMA network a strong rating for its performance in the 3G W-CDMA field trial with China Netcom.
