|
Qualcomm Inc, the world leader in CDMA (code division multiple access) digital wireless technology, said yesterday it will team up with China United Telecommunications Corporation (China Unicom) to launch a trial operation of GSM (global system for mobile communications) 1X in the second quarter of this year.
Based in Suzhou of East China's Jiangsu Province, it will be the first such an experimental operation in the world.
GSM 1X, based on GSM and other new technologies, will enable China Unicom's GSM subscribers to enjoy high-speed data transmission offered by its CDMA 1X service.
According to Qualcomm Inc, the experiment will be divided into several phases.
"The first phase will demonstrate CDMA 1X data transmission business based on GSM network and provide a network environment to test dual mode mobile telephones (between GSM and CDMA 1X)," the company said.
"We will conduct our testing step by step, including the roaming services between GSM and CDMA networks," it said.
"The experiment marks a great step forward for wireless telecommunications," said Irwin Jacobs, chairman and chief executive officer of Qualcomm Inc.
"If the trial operation is succeeded, our GSM users will benefit a lot from our CDMA 1X business," said a China Unicom official.
"And we will definitely expand our experiment to the whole country," she said.
The incompatibility of the two different telecom networks has long been a headache for telecom operators.
Analysts believe such an experiment will help GSM users have more choices, while stepping into the third generation of mobile telecommunications.
China Unicom has more than 8 million CDMA users and 60 million GSM subscribers, accounting for 30 per cent of the nation's total.
"The achievement we've made proved that our market strategies to develop both GSM and CDMA are feasible and efficient," said Wang Jiangzhou, president of China Unicom.
"We are therefore offering more choices to our customers," he added.
China Unicom pledged early this year to speed up its efforts to further develop its CDMA network from 2G (second generation of mobile telecommunications) to 2.5 G, or CDMA 1X.
It expects to recruit about 13 million new CDMA mobile subscribers this year.
According to Wang, the company is now upgrading its CDMA network into CDMA 1X, as well as expanding its system capacity.
All the related work is expected to be completed before the end of second quarter of this year.
(China Daily February 20, 2003)
|
