Phoney wars


In the ten months to October 2007, China Mobile added 55 million new subscribers to its mobile phone network. The company hosts 356 million users, over three times the subscription at the closest competitor, China Unicom.


Equipment providers, from handset suppliers to switch manufacturers are clamoring for a piece of the action. In a move seen as discriminatory against foreign suppliers, the Chinese government adopted a home grown standard for third generation (3G) mobile systems despite downward pressure from European (Wideband Code Division Multiple Access) and US (CDMA 2000)) lobby groups. Beijing is one of ten test cities for the government sponsored time division synchronous code division multiple access (TD-SCDMA) standard.

Excessive royalties to foreign companies and costly litigations arising from Intellectual Property rights violations are citied by Beijing as some of the reasons for pushing the Chinese 3G standard. Others argue that China is simply asserting its position as an important player in the mobile telecommunications space.

After the bra-wars of yesteryear might this be a dress rehearsal for a phone war?

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