China has made significant progress towards the implementation of a domestically developed wireless local area network (WLAN) standard with the release of the first batch of compatible products.

“The fact that a standard gets support of products is already major progress for us,” said Liu Chaoyang, spokesman for the Broadband Wireless IP Standard working group (BWIPS), a major player pushing for the WLAN Authentication and Privacy Infrastructure (WAPI) standard.

Liu said that China IWNCOMM Co., which developed the WAPI protocol, will release the first wireless network card in compliance with the Chinese standard today in Beijing.

IWNCOMM is expected to unveil three network cards and other devices, including access points.

The release of the first WAPI-compatible network card means Chinese companies have succeeded in developing WLAN hardware, a critical step in promoting the Chinese standard.

Last Friday, Founder Technology, the second-largest computer maker in China, announced that its A760 had become the first WAPI-compatible product through software upgrading. It had obtained a CCCi certificate, the official credentials needed to sell WLAN equipment, devices and products in China after June 1.

The company reported that it has one product being tested by the Chinese authorities and it will consider sending more notebook products for testing in order to obtain the compulsory CCCi certification.

Lenovo Group, the leading computer maker in China and the Asia-Pacific region, said some of its notebooks are being tested by the China Quality Certification Center.

Founder Technology reports that it has added wireless modules to its A760 and E3600 products to meet WAPI specifications with assistance from IWNCOMM.

Dorothy Lai, a senior semiconductor analyst with US-based market researcher Gartner Inc., said the release of WAPI-compatible products will put some pressure on foreign players, which either oppose the WAPI standard or have adopted a wait-and-see attitude.

Currently, the 802.11 standards from the WI-FI Alliance are the most popular international specifications. Neatly all the big names in the industry, including US giants Intel, Broadcom and Texas Instruments, are WI-FI members.

The alliance said earlier that its members will not ship any WLAN equipment to China after June 1, worried that their confidential techniques may be leaked to the WIPS group. It said that the WAPI standard heavily favors Chinese companies because the encryption method is controlled by the WIPS working group, composed of 32 organizations and domestic firms and a Texas Instruments joint venture.

However, the Chinese side insists that the security loopholes in the currently popular 802.11b standard have been acknowledged worldwide and that China has the right to protect its information security.

Liu Chaoyang also said the WAPI standard only requires certain interface data and will not lead to a leaking of intellectual property rights for equipment or chip vendors.

Endorsements from major Chinese computer makers and the release of Chinese hardware may lead to a chain reaction as many of the multinationals won’t want to lose the world’s second-largest computer market.

Some Taiwanese equipment and semiconductor companies have already expressed their willingness to endorse the WAPI standard and will supply compatible equipment.

Intel CEO Craig Barrett said in Taipei on Monday that his company would try to resolve its dispute with the Chinese side before the June 1 deadline. Intel announced last month that it would not be able to meet the Chinese standard due to technical difficulties.

He attended a groundbreaking ceremony of its second chip assembly and test plant in China in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, yesterday and is expected to visit northeast China’s Shenyang to discuss what Intel can do in restructuring old industrial bases in the region, according to Intel China spokesperson Jennifer Liu.

He will also meet key customers and government officials tomorrow in Beijing. The WAPI standard is likely to be a major topic in talks with Chinese officials.

Intel has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on its Centrino processors since 2002, and notebooks with these processors have become the most popular application for WLAN.

Dorothy Lai believes that although Intel has been in the limelight owing to its aggressive push of Centrino processors, the world’s biggest semiconductor company will not suffer much from the implementation of China’s WAPI standard even if it fails to meet the deadline.

“Even if Intel cannot ship Centrino processors, it can still sell other Pentium processors,” she said. Centrinos account for a small portion of Intel’s total shipments in China.

Lai predicts no compromise satisfactory to all parties will be reached before June 1, but there might be concessions made from both sides to solve the impasse after the deadline.

(China Daily April 8, 2004)