China Unicom's decision to develop code division multiple access (CDMA) technology will boost CDMA's growth and has started to influence decisions by other operators in the region, according to the CDMA Development Group yesterday in Hong Kong.

In the ongoing sixth CDMA Mobile Conference in Hong Kong, the most important gathering for global telecom vendors and operators, the rapidly growing Chinese market is a hot topic.

The conference, which will run until Friday, is being attended by more than 1,200 of the world's leading service providers, equipment manufacturers and analysts. Leaders from telecom, IT and other industries are sharing their visions about the future for the wireless economy.

The CDMA technology is expected to provide higher transmission quality and speed, less radiation and help with the transfer to the next generation of mobile phones which will offer more services. China Unicom, the country's second biggest mobile operator, has decided to adopt this technology and plans to build a nationwide network that could support millions of mobile phone users.

The move has significantly encouraged CDMA equipment vendors who want to get a part of the network construction work that is worth about 20 billion yuan (US$2.4 billion). Leading manufacturers Lucent, Motorola, Nortel and Ericsson have all already signed contracts with China Unicom.

The Chinese market has become more important over recent months as many telecom equipment vendors are suffering from the global economic downturn.

The biggest winner is Qualcomm, which owns most of the patents for CDMA technology, although some media reports suggest Qualcomm has significantly reduced patent charge for China Unicom.

(China Daily 06/13/2001)