The Chinese Government said Tuesday it will remain cautious about the release of the licence for third-generation (3G) mobile telecommunications, though industry experts believe all three 3G standards are approaching maturity.

"We will plan the 3G technologies and market as a whole to ensure industry sustainability while rolling out our 3G strategies," said Lou Qinjian, vice-minister of the Ministry of the Information Industry (MII), the country's telecom watchdog.

"We consider many factors such as technology, system equipment and terminals as well as business modes and market demand," he said yesterday at the ongoing "3G in China" Global Summit 2004.

Exercising caution on the development of 3G, the Chinese Government chose to study the maturity of all the 3G standards via experimental tests since June 2001.

The three technologies include Chinese TD-SCDMA (Time Division Synchronous), European-backed Wideband CDMA and US-based Qualcomm Corp's CDMA 2000.

Previously, the Chinese Government said the test results would serve as a reference for the Chinese Government to release its 3G licences.

A total of 12 telecoms operators and equipment providers participated in the tests.

The result of the second stage of the tests was released on Monday showing all the 3G standards are nearly approaching maturity.

"The experimental tests laid a solid foundation for the development of 3G technologies in China," Lou said.

"The formulation of all three 3G standards have almost been completed and we are doing some optimization work now," said Zhang Xinsheng, deputy director-general of the Science and Technology Department of the MII.

Industry experts believe that with the sound test results, the Chinese Government will soon release 3G licences.

Government figures show a total of 129 3G licences have been awarded worldwide.

A total of 38 telecoms operators have launched the commercial WCDMA network worldwide.

WCDMA subscribers increased from 2.93 million last year to more than 10 million by the end of September this year.

"The Chinese Government is working on 3G policies," said Xu Yu, deputy director of the Information Institute at the China Academy of Telecommunications Research under the MII.

"It is not urgent for China to rush to 3G at the moment. China still has enough time to think about 3G and hammer out related policies," she said.

According to Cao Shumin, deputy director of the China Academy of Telecommunications Research, despite all the 3G standards approaching maturity, there are still many issues that remain to be addressed.

WCDMA is actually in its early stage as only about one third of telecoms operators who have the licence are working on it, she said.

(China Daily November 10, 2004)