Three reports focusing on the experimental tests of the three 3G standards showed that all of them are approaching maturity, industry experts say.

The reports were released Monday at the ongoing "3G in China" Global Summit 2004, organized by the China Academy of Telecommunication Research (CATR) of the Ministry of Information Industry.

All the 3G standards performed well during the test, according to Wang Zhiqin, deputy director of the Telecommunication Standard Institute of the CATR.

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

"Both WCDMA and CDMA 2000 are reaching maturity in many areas such as core networks and network performance," said the reports.

And TD-SCDMA is progressing "very well," said the reports, adding the technology has been fully tested. But TD-SCDMA still lags behind WCDMA and CDMA 2000 in many aspects such as the involvement of equipment providers and terminal scarcity.

The tests, running from October last year to September this year, was in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou.

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 results will serve as a reference for the Chinese Government to issue its 3G licenses.

(China Daily November 9, 2004)