China Unicom
yesterday kicked off the country's first nationwide CDMA (code
division multiple access) mobile network in Beijing.
The network, which has absorbed investment worth 24 billion yuan
(US$2.9 billion), is regarded as China Unicom's biggest ever gamble
for its future development.
"The CDMA network started a new episode in China's telecom history.
It will soon become the world's biggest network with a capacity of
50 million users in 2003," said Yang Xianzu, chairman of China
Unicom.
The network covers 330 cities nationwide and has a capacity of 15.2
million users, Yang said.
The technology China Unicom adopted is a counterpart of GSM (global
system for mobile communications), which now supports all of
China's 145 million mobile phone users. Most of the CDMA patents
are owned by Qualcomm, a
US-based technology firm.
Compared with GSM mobile phones, CDMA provides high voice quality,
low radiation and high security.
"CDMA's potential users will be the high- and middle-end users who
really care about voice quality, radiation and security," Yang
said. Yet he also conceded that CDMA is facing heavy marketing
pressure since most high- and middle-end users already own a mobile
phone and are customers of Unicom's rival, China
Mobile.
CDMA users will not save any money. The company will charge a 50
yuan (US$6) monthly fee and 0.40 yuan (5 US cents) per minute for
air time - the same rate that China Mobile charges.
But the company may soon introduce some package services, which
would give customers more choice and a flexible charging system,
said a senior manager at China Unicom.
China Unicom's chairman said 500,000 people registered last month
for CDMA mobile phones. Yet industry insiders worry customers may
not get the phones immediately since most CDMA terminal makers have
not started large-scale production yet. Many of the 19 licensed
mobile phone makers are adopting a wait-and-see attitude. They want
to make sure the market demand is big and then start large-scale
production.
The competition between the two companies increased when the number
of mobile phone users hit 10 percent of the population and
attracting new users therefore became difficult.
(China
Daily January 9, 2002)