New Unicom Details WCDMA Plans
China Business News, 11/05/08
A spokesperson for China Unicom's (NYSE: CHU; 0762.HK; 600050.SH) 3G services promotion project said that China Unicom has made preparations to build a WCDMA network within 2-3 months after the issuance of 3G licenses. The company's construction of a WCDMA network would not require changes to the core network, and antennas could be shared between new and existing equipment; the only change necessary would be a smooth upgrade of wireless base stations. China Unicom began soliciting bids for WCDMA network equipment last week, and expects to have results within a month.
A source at China Unicom said that networks in Shanghai, Beijing, and Guangzhou would immediately implement the highest level of WCDMA currently in existence – HSDPA and HSUPA 3.5G modes, with internet download speeds of 14.4 Mbps and upload speeds of 5.76 Mbps. Current TD-SCDMA and CDMA2000 networks have download speeds of less than 4Mbps.
China Unicom figures show that 11% of Shanghai mobile users use imported mobile phones; of these, 95% are WCDMA handsets. These users will be able to take advantage of China Unicom's WCDMA services with only a change to a China Unicom SIM card.
At the same time, a spokesperson for Shanghai Mobile revealed that as of late October, more than 20,000 TD-SCDMA data cards had been sold in Shanghai, of which more than 3,000 were TD-HSDPA cards.
Keywords: bidding procurement network construction 0762.HK 3.5G 3G 600050.SH Beijing China Unicom CHU Guangzhou HSDPA HSUPA Shanghai Shanghai Mobile SIM card TD-HSDPA TD-SCDMA WCDMA wireless 0941.HK base station China Mobile CHL data card mobile phone mobile subscribers
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