TD-SCDMA (time division synchronous code division multiple access) Alliance, a domestic organization to promote the home grown third generation (3G) of wireless telecommunications standard, is soon to enlist Italian STMicroelectronics, the first foreign firm in the alliance.

The participation of the foreign firm marks the internationalization of our alliance," said Tao Xiongqiang, chairman of the alliance on Friday in an interview.

"We are now talking with many leading foreign IT giants and the alliance is likely to enlist new members by the end of this year," he said.

The alliance is maintaining contact with 10 foreign telecom equipment providers, including Siemens and Nokia, he said.

Faster than expected development of TD-SCDMA technology explains the increasing attention of foreign firms, Tao believes.

"We are also happy to see many European telecom operators are now in contact with us to learn more about the technology."

"In fact, to go international will be one of the key tasks for us next year as the standard is approaching maturity now," he said.

As one of the three 3G standards, TD-SCDMA is the most advanced solution for mobile operators with unpaired frequency bands.

And the Chinese Government has allocated 155MHZ frequency resources to support the domestic standard.

Last year, the government spent a total of 600 million yuan (US$72 million) on boosting the standard.

"We are able to ensure the commercialization of the TD-SCDMA system by the middle of next year," said Yang Hua, secretary-general of TD-SCDMA Alliance.

The industrial chain for the 3G standard has already been formed including system networks, chips and handsets, he said.

For example, telecom equipment providers such as Datang Mobile Communications Equipment Co Ltd (Datang Mobile), ZTE Corporation, Huawei Technologies and China Putian are able to construct the TD-SCDMA networks.

More than five members of the alliance are working on chipsets such as T3G, Commit, Chongqing Chongyou Information Technology Co Ltd (CCIT) and STMicroelectronics, while Datang Mobile and CCIT are able to provide handsets.

"We will focus more on the TD-SCDMA handset next year as it is a bottleneck for the development of the industry," he said.

He expected more and more handset makers are manufacturing handsets supporting TD-SCDMA system, such as DBTEL, Samsung, Lenovo, Huawei and China Putian.

"Technically, we are meeting most of the government's requirements in the current 3G trial testing," he said.

Currently, the MII is leading an experimental test on all 3G standards in China - European-backed Wideband CDMA, US-based Qualcomm Corp's CDMA2000 and domestic TD-SCDMA.

Organized by the 3G TEG (China 3G Technical Trial Expert Group) and RITT (Research Institute of Telecommunications Transmission) under the China Academy of Telecommunications Research with the MII, the test result will serve as a reference for the Chinese Government to release its 3G licences.

The result is expected to be released early next month.

In another development, Yang said a special expert panel of 10 members, comprising telecom experts and operators will be set up in the coming months to help map out the development strategies for TD-SCDMA standard in China.

"The special panel will help find problems and digest problems to ensure the success of technology," he said.

(China Daily October 23, 2004)