Minutes of Expert Online-June.05,2003

Invited guest: Mr. Xiao Chang
leader of 3G technology delegation of China Information Industry Association, Vice-Chief Secretary-general of China Information Industry Association

Invited guest:Mr. Yang Hua
Vice-leader of 3G technology delegation of China Information Industry Association

Mr. Jin Guo Qiang (Secretary General of forum) address salutary:
Hello everyone, I am happy to be here to discuss with you about 3G topic.

Firstly, let me introduce the background of this expert online. From Apr. 15 to Apr. 30, 2003, 3G technology Delegation of China Communication Information Association paid a visit to Europe. Companies e.g. ZTE, Huawei Tech., Datang mobile, Pu Tian, Guang Dong telecom institute, Academy of Shanghai telecommunication, Guang dong Jin Peng, Nanjing 55th institute, Xi¡¯an Hai Tian joined in this activity. The experience of this visit deserved to be think carefully for us, today it is honorable for TD-SCDMA forum to invite the leaders of this technical visit group to chat with us by internet. On behalf of all the members of TD-SCDMA forum, I would like to thank the coming of two leaders to communicate with us about the industrialization of TD-SCDMA, marketing, frequency allocation etc., I hope all of you can give free speeches and provide your good idea to the development of TD-SCDMA technique.

The motivation of the foundation of TD-SCDMA forum is to provide all the companies and organizations involved in the TD-SCDMA techniques a platform to communicate with each other, make better environment for the development of TD-SCDMA. All the experts invited for the expert online are the outstanding specialist in telecommunication field, so I suggest you all not to miss such a good chance. The minutes of this expert online will be provided for further discussion after the meeting.

Wish this activity will be successful and wish you all will gain something.

Chairman Ms. Fu Jun (vice secretary general of forum):

Firstly, I, welcome all the guests here to join in this expert online on behalf of TD-SCDMA forum. I hope the activity today will be held in a good environment and achieve more, two invited guests have already be seated, I will not introduce them one by one, I hope now you can consider your questions and prepare for the chat.

Firstly, let us invite Mr. Xiao Chang to give an introduction of this visit to Europe.

Introduction of the visit by Mr. Xiao Chang:

Good afternoon everyone. From Apr. 15 to Apr. 30, 2003, 15 persons of 3rd generation communication technical visit of China information association paid a visit to Europe, we visited 6 countries, 4 companies and also communicated with EU information department. These 6 countries are: France, Germany, Sweden, Denmark, Luxemburg, and Belgium which is the headquarter of Europe Union. The first stop is France and Alcatel , a big IT company in France; for Germany it is Siemens, in Sweden it is Ericsson, in Demark it is RTX. Now, I will give a short overview of the commercial status of 3G R&D of these big European companies.

3G R&D center of Alcatel is mainly located in Japan, Europe and Shanghai, Alcatel doesn¡¯t invest in 3G mobiles and is looking for partners to cooperate on development. To TD-SCDMA, Arcatel also doesn¡¯t show interest on it, only few people in China keep on tracing this technique and treats it in the same way like 4G. In a word, due to lacking of investment, Alcatel doesn¡¯t show much interest on 3G and think UMTS is only suitable for big city, there still be some challenges on the development of services users interested. And they think the 3G large scale commercial use is a long term procedure and should treat it carefully.

The second stop is Siemens. Siemens is currently tracing two standards, one is the European standard, WCDMA; another is TD-SCDMA, which is developed together with Datang. By our investigation, the deepest impression to us is that Siemens put great effort and money on the R&D of TD-SCDMA.

The third stop is Ericsson, it seems that Ericsson is speeding up the commercial use of WCDMA, they are developing a series of WCDMA mobiles and put great effort to lower the cost and desired for ordinary users. It is estimated that by the second half of 2004 to the first half of 2005, large quantities of 3G hansets will be put into market. At the same time, Ericsson also introduced its commercial network construction in Italy, by now there are more than 3000 base stations, which cover 300 cities, owns 40 thousands users.

Ericsson shows its view on the WCDMA market: starting the commercial use in 2003 and forming a national coverage by 2004, becoming a large scale commercial network by 2005, this statement is just based on the fact in Italy. The equipment of Ericsson have already covered 24 countries and 35 operators in the world. There has a statistic figure, by October 2002, they have already deployed 10 thousands BSs in the world. In its 3G lab, Ericsson demonstrates 64K 3G video call, according to the demo, the result is satisfactory. Ericsson says, the development of mobiles will be finished at the end of this year, and can be commercial use in next year. Especially, they are cooperating with Siemens and developing TD-SCDMA mobile chipset, currently the chipset under developed can support TSM,GPRS dual mode and support the handover from WCDMA to GSM. RTX desired the mobiles as Siemens and now finished the test mobiles, next they will develop the TD-SCDMA commercial mobile based on TSM standard at the end of this year to mid of 2004.

By the interview with them, we may have an overall impression of 3G in Europe, when we arrived in Brussels, by communication, it proves what we feel.

EU information department introduced the 3G policy, developing status of 3G in Europe and the facing problem. According to the introduction, we feel that Europe choose WCDMA as its 3G standard is decided by the market.

About the developing plan, Leader of the information department, said that their activities is making 3G policy in Europe, coordinating the 3G frequency allocation plan, choosing WCDMA as 3G standard, is not because of the regulation of EU, but because of GSM network, WCDMA is the smooth and natural evolution way.

By now, there has 825 million persons using GSM in the world and share 71% of the world mobile communication market. By the end of 2003, the number of subscribers will reach 1 billion and by 2005 it will reach 1.5 billion, so in fact it is a world wide standard.

EU also has prospective plan for mobile communication R&D, e.g. IST project, which is very similar to our Chinese 863 project, it provides the financial support to the R&D of EU countries and also support for the projects of non-EU countries.

We also mentioned during the visit to the information department, we hope Chinese research institutes, Chinese vendors, if they have the interest, have feasible R&D plan, they also allowed to apply for the fund. The experts of IST also introduce the 6th framework project, they said besides 3G, there still has beyond 3G and 4G. From year 2010-2015, it may be the time for beyond 3G; 4G is a prospective plan, the time will be about 2020.

About 4G, America and Europe have different opinions, America think it should be a high speed, private, non-license system, while Japan emphasizes that is should be a public high speed system, thus demands high data rates and bandwidth.

When we visited the EU information department, they hope to choose WCDMA as 3G standard. European GSM association, Mr. Hoferman, made a report specially for us, named world wide 3G solution, WCDMA. But why 3G development is still very weak, he explained that it is because of lacking of low cost, high quality mobile, when lots of new mobiles put into market at the second half of this year, the situation will be changed. After discussing the advantage of WCDMA, he suggested that China should also adopt WCDMA.

(Yang Hua): What means open standard, that is all of us can see the standard and it doesn¡¯t like before that the standard and technique was owned by some manufactures, other companies were hard to know it. Now, 3G standard is open and transparent, everyone can see the standard and develop the products according to the standard. The second view is that he think WCDMA is a world wide standard.

(Mr. Xiao Chang, continue to say): European information department is now pushing the commercial use of WCDMA in Europe, in the whole Europe, there has 7 WCDMA networks in 7 countries, the subscribers is about 90 thousand by now. In short, the support of EU to WCDMA is very clear, we hope that Chinese government also shows its impact on the choice of 3G standard.

One change is that EU doesn¡¯t mention WCDMA alone, but states ¡°WCDMA plus TD-SCDMA¡±, it shows that EU support our TD-SCDMA and hope China can support WCDMA as well.

I¡¯d like to say some experience, the first is that, WCDMA is already mature from the technical point of view but large-scale commercial use still needs some time. Secondly, the choice of 3G standard is not technical issue but political and economic issue. Thirdly, EU information department plays an important role in the development of 3G in Europe. EU information department is not just a coordination organization, it leads, organizes and coordinates 3G development in the whole Europe.

On the way back to china, we had a discussion based on our feeling and made the following suggestions.

Firstly, the government should play a role on the organization and leadership of 3G development and provide better environment for TD-SCDM A development. Secondly, to enlarge the TD-SCDMA industry alliance, improve the impact of TD-SCDMA on market. Thirdly, to allocate 3G license in a proper time, lead the 3G industry developing in a healthy way. Fourthly, to allocate 3G license with TDD only, speed up the mature of TD-SCDMA industry. Chinese standard TD-SCDMA is also an international standard, however due to lacking of time and investment, lag behind compared with other two standards, thus we need more support from nation¡¯s policies.

By this visit, we saw the 3G developing status of Europe, especially we know that 3G is going to the commercial use in Europe, this can help us to consider it carefully on the choice of 3G standard in China.

Meanwhile all of us think that the choice of 3G standard is not a technical but political issue, which involves the nation¡¯s political and economic interest.

So, from the point of view of China, when choosing the 3G standard, we think we should on behalf of the national interest, from the national industry point of view to consider this issue or make the decision.

Just now, I go through the points of this visit shortly, if you still have interest or have some questions, especially on the technical and equipment fields, I¡¯d like to let Mr. Yang Hua to give more explanation.

(Mr. Yang Hua): Mr. Xiao has already given a introduction of this visit, here I only want to say some experience of mine.

As stated by European vendors, for example just now Mr. Xiao mentioned that Ericsson said that its mobile will be mature for commercial use in quantity, however according to their introduction and demos, I estimate that it must be until at least by the first half of the next year, this is the status of mobile.

Its services.,system equipments are now almost mature for use but its mobiles are premature. From the point of view of services, it is the common opinion that they don¡¯t find their specific way for operation. As mentioned by Mr. Xiao, currently there has only 3 commercial networks in Europe and 7 networks in the world, the number of BS of these three commercial networks is very big, but the number of users is only tens of thousands. From this point of view, the real operation, on the status of mobile and services etc, it is not mature. In my view, large scale 3G operation in Europe is decided by the number of users. Secondly, just as mentioned by Mr. Xiao, that two contrary opinions, one is that EU information department emphasized again and again that it is not the regulation but the market choose WCDMA, it is not a government action but the choice of the manufactures according to the market. However, when we visited the vendors, including Ericsson, RTX, Alcatel etc., they showed definite view that the choice of 3G is not a technical issue but a political issue.

The appearance of a new standard, it contains lots of techniques, among the operation of the standard, it will push the development of the whole chain, especially for 3G, it will contain lots of application in the future, so its contribution to the national economy is huge. That is why from the technical point of view both European and American companies support FDD, but there still have two standards, cdma2000 and WCDMA, and these two standards fight to each other on the use of the standard.

Online discussion:
Q: What is the impact of the delay of 3G deployment in Europe to China?
A(Yang Hua): In my point of view, this is a good news to our 3G operation, why? Because there has two main reasons why they put off the commercial operation, the first is that terminal is not mature and the second is that no proper 3G service is found. If there has no suitable service, no matter how large the network may be, the number of users will not be increased much, lacking of users, the investment of operators will not be returned and thus no money to pay to the manufactures, this is a connected economic loop. If 3G is developed well in Europe and has large market, it will bring negative effect to China, it will push Chinese 3G licenses released soon and the operators start to construct 3G network. It is somewhat special for China, we have only two operators, its 2.5G network is just putting into use and don¡¯t get its investment returned. If we allocate 3G license at this time, some new operators will definitely start to construct 3G network, because it is not a good choice for them to build 2G network. Once the construction of these 3G network, it will push the original two operators, which don¡¯t get its investment back on 2.5G network, to construct 3G network in a hurry, or they will be in a bad position in the competition to the new operators because of lacking advantage on techniques, so it will cause the 3G equipments will be constructed in large quantity in China. However, 3G equipments are unstable, on this condition, operators will encounter two big problems, firstly they must have lots of technical engineers to maintain the network and let the network be stable as soon as possible, make the equipments and system be more mature, this is a big problem. Secondly, due to lacking of better mode for operation and win money, the investment on the network can not be returned, gaining no money for the operators will affect the manufactures, no return for the manufactures will also entangle their partners. So, the construction of 3G network itself should push the whole industrial chain and economy to increase, however if it is not the right time, it may cause negative effect and bring much trouble in many fields. For example, in Europe not only the operators but also the manufactures are in bad condition, the reason is the earlier release of 3G license by auction with huge money. The big burden of the operators affect the manufactures and cause this loop in the industry chain to become difficulty, it becomes a vicious circle. So I think that the development of European 3G doesn¡¯t go well is an alertness to us.

Q: Could you please tell us what is the plan of Europe to TDD frequency band?
A(Yang Hua): At the beginning, the layout of this band is for UTRA TDD to solve the capacity problem of FDD when deploying in high population area, on this condition TDD is constructed as the supplementary of FDD on hot spots, so the TDD license is allocated from this point of view.
(references provided by online guests):
In Europe, in United Kingdom, 3 operators, each allocated for 5MHz; France, 2 operators, 5MHz each; Belgium, 4 operators, 5MHz each; Ireland, 4 operators, 5MHz each; Spain, 4 operators, 5MHz each; Portugal, 4 operators, 5MHz each; Switzerland, 4 operators, 5MHz each; Italy, 5 operators, 5MHz each; Greece, 4 operators, 5MHz each; Germany, 5 operators, 5MHz each; Austria, 1 operator, 5MHz each and 2 operators, 10MHz each; Denmark, 4 operators, 5MHz each; Finland, 4 operators 5MHz each; Sweden, 4 operators. In total, in Europe, 16 countries buy 315MHz TDD frequency, every MHz costs 0.3 billion dollars, so in fact 94.5 billion dollars has been invested on the purchase of TDD frequency.

Q: Could you please tell us what is the difference of us compared with the international companies?
Answer(Mr. Yang Hua): From the 1st to 3rd generation systems, if we only consider the research ability, Compared with Chinese companies and international communication companies, such as Ericsson, Motorola, the gap is little. However, if we consider the core techniques, there still have significant difference. At the beginning of the development of WCDMA, EU invested huge money on it and started technique pre-analysis and try to export more products when the time for the next generation systems comes, on this point, China has the difference. But when the standard is available, on the product manufacture field, compared with European companies, the difference is little.

Q: Does the IPR of smart antenna belong to Datang or Xi¡¯an Hai Tian?
Answer (Yang Hua): TD-SCDMA smart antenna technique is the IPR of Datang, this technique is also used in the TD-SCDMA products. Xi¡¯an Hai Tian develops rapidly in recent years, many antennas used before in China are imported abroad, the grow up of this company is also a big contribution to the national industry, by the development of GSM antennas, its GSM and CDMA products begins to earn some share on the market.

Q: How many subscribers are there in European commercial WCDMA network?
Answer(Mr. Xiao Chang): Currently in Europe, there has 7 WCDMA networks in 7 countries in the whole Europe, the total subscribers are 90 thousand, the characteristic services are mainly on video, books, live TV etc.

Q: What is the most important meaning of this visit to Europe?
Answer(Mr. Yang Hua): The mobile communication development in Europe is indeed useful reference to China, EU 6th framework project will invest about 3.6 billion Euros, which is mainly focus on development of the next generation mobile communication system. On the development of mobile communication industry, EU takes methods to guide and push the development of mobile communication, the functions include six fields: firstly, organize the manufactures and research units to make the standards and research of the technique, pre-analyze which techniques can be used for the next generation communication, this is done under the organization of EU. Secondly, study how to allocate the frequency, which band is most suitable for a certain technique and make the plan of frequency use among Europe. Thirdly, when standard and techniques are chosen, start to make the terminal security standard, that is when communicating, which is the most secure way, including the choose of algorithm, that is also decided by EU. Fourthly, to clarify the policy uncertainty on the development of mobile communication, because this sounds ambiguous, we asked them what is the real meaning of the words at that time, then they said that means to help the manufactures to have the confidence to the market. For example, one technique will be studied in future from the whole plan of EU, however for time being the operator see there has no market, when this happens, the government will take action and cultivate the confidence of this technique in the future market. Fifthly, help each government to simplify the approval procedure of using mobile communication. Some operators may apply for license or construction network, the application procedure may be very complicated, so the responsibility of EU is to help each government to simplify the procedure. Sixthly, help the operators to construct the 3rd generation mobile communication network, the main work here is that when a BS will be set on an area, a building, maybe some residents may not allow to build the BS on the roof top from the electromagnetic safety point of view, or some companies may have the feeling that the BS will interfere their equipments from the EMC point of view, and thus block the construction, then EU will cooperate with each government to persuade the residents and make the work goes successfully. So, from the function to the mobile communication system development point of view, it plays positive function on the evolution of a technique to products and eventually to commercial network, EU this is a very good reference to the development of Chinese mobile communication. Because currently, our country don¡¯t act like Europe and push the development of mobile communication in step and as scheduled.

Q: Equipment providers are required by the government to report their number of patents sometime before. How many patents does DaTang hold?
A: Personally I didn¡¯t take part in the patent evaluation group, so that I can not figure out the exact number. But what I want to assure is that DaTang holds the core patents of TD-SCDMA. Concerning the development of an industry, patents are not the means to get profit but the ones to protect the development of the industry. This is because that the nowadays technologies are so globalized that it is not possible for one company to hold patents covering overall system aspects. For example, Qualcomm plays an important role in the development of cdma2000 system, however, other companies like Nortel, Lucent and Motorola hold lots of patents of cdma2000. For the development of one company or one industry, holding the core patents provide it with the preliminary conditions to further grow. This means that you can get rid of the patent constraints by cross-license.

Q: Concerning the TD-SCDMA outdoor demo performed last year, it is said only physical layer function is tested and higher layer operations are not considered. What is the status?
A: The field trial test nowadays incorporates both physical and higher layer functions. And the field trial is conducted outdoor. In other words, current field trial system is one hundred percent compliant to mobile radio system.

Q: EU supports the tie-up of WCDMA and TD-SCDMA. What is your opinion on this matter?
A: From economic point of view, China is a big market for European companies and plays an critical role in their strategies. The support of TD-SCDMA from European side will positively enhance the WCDMA perspective in China. WCDMA and TD-SCDMA systems will be compatible and complementary to each other to provide better quality services and seamless roaming.

Answer(Mr. Yang Hua): From technical point of view, TD-SCDMA is full featured 3G network solution and supports all radio network scenarios, best suited for metropolitan areas as well as providing coverage for rural areas. In addition, TD-SCDMA has its unique advantages of supporting high asymmetric service, high capacity, etc. It is also an option for FDD operator to take TD-SCDMA as a complementary to FDD in hot-spot area to provide high capacity. For TD-SCDMA system itself, it can be applied in all kinds of radio network scenarios, from macro cells to pico cells. From European companies point of view, on the other hand, they are the promoters of WCDMA and advocate the larger-scale roll-out of WCDMA network while naturally taking TD-SCDMA as an complementary option. But TD-SCDMA is proposed by China and we can have our own way to make the decision of 3G network building.

Q: Could you have an expectation when will be the optimum time for china to start 3G network building?
A: It depends. Time will be mature as soon as there is success commercial network worldwide.

Q: One expert said that china will not release 3G licenses unless we have breakthrough of TD-SCDMA system. What is your opinion?
Answer(Mr. Yang Hua): When will be optimum time to start 3G building in china? The biggest problem that 3G facing is the absence of successful services for users. This problem has not been solved so far in European, North America and Japan. Considering the status of china, we just started the commercial operation of 2.5G and the 2G network is updated to satisfy the ever increasing capacity demand. So, it is not urgent for china to initiate 3G business considering the development of mobile industry and also the get back the investment better . I think it will be the most beneficial for china to consider commercial 3G campaign when success business model is found worldwide.

Q: when will TD-SCDMA be nation-wide covered?
Answer(Mr. Yang Hua):We have two test networks now but these two networks are dedicated to field trial, this is not the same as European case since their networks are commercial test network. From the aspect of system equipment, we will provide commercial equipment at the first half of next year. The problem comes from the terminal development. Hopefully, we will have commercial terminal at the second half of next year.

Q: Whom do you prefer to get the TD-SCDMA license?
Answer(Mr. Yang Hua): I am the secretary general of TD-SCDMA Alliance and every participant company has its contribution to TD-SCDMA. So, it will be favorable for the Alliance to release TD-SCDMA licenses to all operators in china.

Q: DaTang and Siemens are two separate companies. And two companies are bound to have interests conflict in market. What do you describe the relationship between DaTang and Siemens on TD-SCDMA cooperation?
Answer(Mr. Yang Hua): I don¡¯t think so. DaTang and Siemens have a close cooperation on TD-SCDMA R&D and are complementary to each other. Siemens has lots of experience of product management, i.e. the management during the product R&D, to make the products stable. On the other hand, DaTang has its superiority of standardization and technology R&D. DaTang has the background of institute and doesn¡¯t have enough experience of product management. By collaborating with Siemens, DaTang gains its experience on this issue and the testing results show that our products are as stable as Siemens¡¯s. Facing the competition in the market, I think domestic companies will have their superiorities over foreign companies due to the low-cost products. In sum, DaTang will try to play an important role in TD-SCDMA.

Q: Could you describe the second-stage MTNet testing results?
A: According to MTNet test specifications, there are totally 102 test items for TD-SCDMA. First stage up to 50 items are tested and the rest 52 items are tested in the second stage. The testing of TD-SCDMA is limited to access network issues since core network will be the same as that of WCDMA.,but their access networks are different. That is why the test items for TD-SCDMA is little bit different from those of WCDMA, but the testing is strictly conformed to the test specifications. WCDMA has more test items since also core network issues have to be covered. The feedbacks of the testing are pretty satisfying. The system equipments of DaTang are stable and successfully passed the first testing. The test group think highly of DaTang equipments. In sum, we got satisfied results.

Q: When will the 3rd test start?
A: It is said the expert team are planning. And we are waiting for the requirement from the expert team.

Q: In the first test last year, only Alcatel had Q&A process. How many companies taking part in the test this year?
A: Only three companies took part in last year¡¯s 3G test and this year more companies are admitted. But the test, consisting of 3 consecutive stages, is carried out stage by stage. I am not sure whether more companies will be involved in the 3rd stage.

Q: You said that the MTNet test for DaTang is satisfying. What about Siemens side?
A: We do not have testing results of other companies.but the test group think highly of DaTang equipments.

Q: What is the goal of this Europe trip? Europe did not find any appropriate business model for 3G, what is your opinion on the business model of TD-SCDMA? What is the outcome of this trip?
A: The delegation of this trip is mainly composed of companies from the TD-SCDMA Alliance, together with other companies. Our goal is to see the progress of 3G in Europe, what is the problem, and what lessons can be learned, the organization of European 3G project, etc. From TD-SCDMA Alliance¡¯s point of view, we mainly concern with the problem and commercial status of WCDMA and hope to get some inspirations on TD-SCDMA project. For the issue of service model, we are doing some research and have not got any deliverable plan. But the delegation got some inspirations from the trip and we believe that we will find some appropriate TD-SCDMA.service model especially for Chinese.

Q: Have you visited the commercial network?
A: The delegation of this trip is mainly composed of companies and we are more concerned about the equipment manufacture. In other words, we have not visited the commercial network.

Q: what is the possibility of releasing TD-SCDMA stand-alone license?
A: There is no stand-alone TDD license in Europe. However, the possibility is rather big in china because of the allocated frequency spectrum. With the entrance of WTO, more and more foreign operators want to come into the Chinese market. The first thing that they concern is the frequency allocation. Where there is frequency, there will be the investment.

Q: what is the vista of the TD-SCDMA forum?
Mr. Jin Guo Qiang (Secretary General of forum) :TD-SCDMA forum will be globalized, promote the industry development and coordinate the communications between industry, government and operators further.

Q: What do you think the status of TD-SCDMA development? Should we accelerate our progress or we can follow the defined timetable step by step?
A: Now we are following the timetable defined October, 2002. The progress is under our control and the work is carried out smoothly.

Q: Some people think that the releasing of TD-SCDMA license depends on the maturity of Chinese 3G development. What is your opinion?
A: if TD-SCDMA license is released now, it will lead to ill-will-competition. New operators will build their 3G networks, but they are not bound to get profit from 3G due to non-successful service model. On the other hand, existing operators will be pushed to build 3G networks without 2.5G investment refunding. So, for both equipment vendors and operators, it is not blessing.

Q: Japan advocates WCDMA. What is the difference between Japanese and European WCDMA?
A: Japan initiated its commercial networks two years ago, but only has limited users. We think it is not mature for Japanese operators to start their 3G business. Both system equipment and terminal have to be improved. The difference between Japan WCDMA and Europe WCDMA is the high standard stacks. The definition of Japan¡¯s. WCDMA is different from European¡¯s.

Q: Mr.Xiao, as a member of the delegation, what is your opinion on this trip?
Mr.xiao liangyong(president of xi¡¯an Haitian antenna technology): after this visit, I have some views: First, without the response of market , only the 3G enthusiasm from the vendors cause the carriers dare not spend huge fund on 3G now. Second, Chinese telecoms market is the largest one in the world, Chinese government is the key factor on the issuing the 3G license. At present china is just begin deploying its 2.5G networks, it is not the suitable time for deploying 3G right now, the timetable of issuing 3G license depends on the requirement of market. Third, we can learn from the experience from Europe and US, we can decide choose which standard after there some mature 3G applications in the world. By that time, TD-SCDMA technology will be mature too, so we must use this opportunity and speed up our R&D and industrialization of TD-SCDMA.. This is an rare opportunity for Chinese telecoms industry.

Q: What kind of services does forum provide to senior and director members?
A: We have been improving the services for forum senior and director members. We strive to promote the communication between partners, establish the potential cooperation between partners and timely release latest news about TD-SCDMA. Suggestions from members of forum are highly welcome so that we can provide better services such as propagandizing the company and the products of the senior and director members on forum website and other individual services.

Q: What is the performance comparison between TD-SCDMA and WCDMA?
A: Both of these two systems satisfy the requirements set by ITU on 3G standard. The difference is that different technologies are applied. WCDMA takes up dual 5MHz frequency band for uplink and downlink, respectively, with a guard frequency band in-between. TD-SCDMA shares one 1.6MHz frequency band for uplink and downlink. In addition, some state-of-art technologies, like smart antenna, joint detection, etc. are applied in TD-SCDMA. In summarization, three points can be drawn. First of all, TD-SCDMA has higher spectrum efficiency than WCDMA. Secondly, TD-SCDMA is more suitable for asymmetric transmission, which is favorable in downlink multimedia services. Last but not the least, TD-SCDMA has more powerful technology to mitigate interferences. Since TD-SCDMA has the capability of offering high capacity and high data-rate service, some WCDMA vendors advocate the application of TD-SCDMA as complementary solution in hot-spot areas.

Q: Will there be some privileges for domestic companies on the issue of IPR?
A: Definitely. It is the first time for china to propose one whole standard in the last 100 years. This is an opportunity for domestic companies to close cooperate on the research and development.

Q: Which one will provide higher system capacity, WCDMA or TD-SCDMA?
A: My answer is TD-SCDMA. There are some debates on this issue but the best proof is that Europe takes TD-SCDMA as complementary to WCDMA in hot-spot area. This means that Europe has already acknowledged the superiority of higher capacity of TD-SCDMA.

Q: Will SARS affect the 3G progress? Are you satisfied with the progress of LCR R&D of DaTang? Will SARS affect DaTang¡¯s progress?
A: SARS affects the national economy and affects TD-SCDMA progress to some extent. Especially for field trial, the engineers are not possible to come back to Chongqing and Chengdu when they are in Beijing. So the updating of the software and other field trial work are postponed a bit.

Q: What is the vista of TSM in China?
A: TSM offers existing operators a smooth and efficient way for migrating 2G networks to 3G networks and beyond. For new operators, on the other hand, the maturity and stability of TD-SCDMA Phase1 will facilitate their speed of market penetrating while providing all 3G speech and data services to subscribers. Currently, we are working on the standardization of TSM.

Q: To what extent will smart antenna contribute to system capacity?
A: there will be 9dB gain difference between using smart antennas and not using.

Note:
because there are too many questions the day, some questions still need experts answer. we will put all the answers later on our website, if you have any questions please contact with us, thanks

Read more...