Datang Mobile, the most active force in the development of the Chinese-led third-generation (3G) mobile standard TD-SCDMA, said it was ready to ship commercial network equipment to the market and was looking forward to taking part in the next round of commercial trials.

"Our work for the next period is to prepare for commercial trials with the participation of real customers and we hope it will take place as soon as possible," said Xie Yongbin, vice-president of Datang Mobile Communications Equipment Co Ltd, which initiated research into TD-SCDMA, one of the three 3G standards in the world.

He said yesterday in Beijing that the performance of the mobile network has reached the definition of 3G, and is ready for a larger-scale trial.

Earlier this month, Wang Zhiqin, an official with the Chinese Academy of Telecommunications Research in charge of trials of 3G standards, said the trial of TD-SCDMA equipment and handsets was done and there were no major faults in the system.

Xie said it was time to start commercial trials with the participation of real customers, which is the last step before a commercial launch.

In the previous test, TD-SCDMA worked with China Mobile, China Netcom and China Railcom in Beijing and set up 20 base stations.

Xie said in the coming commercial trial there will be many more base stations deployed with the participation of at least 1,000 real customers.

He said technology is not a barrier for the final-stage test, but the co-operation among telecom operators, equipment manufacturers, and phone makers is still continuing.

It was reported that some telecom carriers are still wondering whether to adopt the TD-SCDMA standard due to its shorter history than the other two standards, WCDMA and CDMA 2000, which both have established commercial networks. TD-SCDMA is supported by the Chinese Government so Datang Mobile wants to accelerate the pace of the trials and convince the operators to get involved.

The domestic market research house Analysys International said in a recent circular that there will be at least one operator which will embrace TD-SCDMA, but the Chinese-led standard still faces difficulties: lack of end-to-end solutions, network deployment, optimization capability, and compatibility with existing mobile systems.

However, Xie said Datang Mobile had solved all the difficulties and is ready to ship equipment to the market from Alcatel Bell Shanghai's factory.

(China Daily July 22, 2005)