China Unicom completes CDMA network

BEIJING—China Unicom will complete the first phase of the construction of its CDMA-network on 22 December. The network will have a capacity of 15 million subscribers and cover 97 percent of the country’s prefecture-level cities and more than 2,000 counties.

Mobile services will become available by 8 January, 2002. Construction of the second phase will start soon and bring capacity to 50 million users.

Motorola is the only foreign company permitted to produce CDMA handsets in China. Other foreign companies will have to team up with one of the Chinese license holders if they want to produce CDMA handsets in the country.

Motorola expects to sell 2 million CDMA handsets in the Chinese market next year.