China to Fall Short in Olympic 3G Mobile
Despite China’s promise to have a 3G phone network in place by the time of the 2008 Beijing Olympics, a bluster-filled announcement made yesterday only served to underline that commercial services will not be ready in time.
The National Development and Reform Commission used a telecoms expo to attempt to reassure doubters by saying that a 3G network using the home-grown TD-SCDMA (Time Division Synchronous Code Division Multiple Access) standard would be up and running during the Olympics after all.
However, the fact that the network will simply be a trial designed to showcase TD-SCDMA and that there are still no plans to issue essential 3G spectrum licenses to commercial operators merely underlines that the so-called ‘high-tech’ Olympics are looking decidedly old fashioned.
The deployment of TD-SCDMA has been delayed by technical uncertainties and bureaucratic hold-ups, meaning that there is still a slim possibility that China will eat humble pie for the duration of the games and offer a limited 3G service based on US or European standards, such as CDMA 2000 and W-CDMA.
[via Tech.co.uk]
