The fifth International mobile communication forum of IMT-2000 held successfully in Beijing

Michael hua
TD-SCDMA FORUM

The fifth International mobile communication forum of IMT-2000 which attracted many experts’ attention inaugurated in Beijing. More than five hundred delegates attended this seminar. Several problems were discussed deeply in the conference. The problems discussed in this conference included the policy of 3G industry and market exploitation in china, the arrangement experience and development direction of foreign operators, the improvement and evolvement of 3G technology and its benefits for China, the development perspective of 3G mobile phone in China and the innovation of semiconductor, and the perspective of 3G mobile services in China.

Mr. Lou qinjian, the vice minister of MII, attended the inauguration and made an important speech. He said that the 3G development in China must be based on the behalf of the whole country and made overall plans and took all factors into consideration. Our 3G development should make for the reformation of operation and the effective competition in market, the upgrade of the communication network and the development of services, and the satisfaction of customers’ demand. We should provide the convenience for the people to enjoy the benefits brought by IT. According to these principles, we could improve the development of 3G actually. China will push the development of 3G according to the principle: “Following actively, testing ahead, fostering the market, supporting the development”. MII is organizing the network technology test of 3G elaborately. MII will continue to promote the technology, accumulate experience and investigate the relevant policies. MII is also investigating the relationship of wireless broadband access and 3G, and observing the market opportunities brought by the relative amalgamation of various new technologies. China is one of the biggest communication markets in the world, so the development speed and the final result of 3G in China will not only affect the progress of mobile telecom industry in China, but also influence the mobile telecom industry in the world deeply. He said that the assignment of 3G licenses in China would absorb the experience of relevant countries, think over the maturity of technology, system devices and terminals sufficiently, and the circumstances of service exertions and market developments. Otherwise, the most important point is to follow the rules of market and the actual instances in China. Along with the formation of competition situation among operators in China and the improvement of intendance systems, China will confirm its own 3G technical standard in the field of the International standards. The choice of 3G technology will follow the principle of market competition and will allow the operators to choose their
own standards in the bound of 3G standards used in China according to the market and their own demand. This is the usual manner in the world.

Mr. Wen ku, the director of science and technology department of MII, promulgated the circumstance of the former two field tests and their latest development for the first time. In the former two tests, the problem of intercommunication of terminals is apparent. This network technology test was mainly provided for operators and in charge of MII. It the past year, from October 2003 to September 2004. About 1000 people participated this test and the overall process is all right at present. In the overall project of this test, the tested standards included TD-SCDMA, WCDMA and CDMA2000; the tested cities included Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. TD-SCDMA will not be tested in Guangzhou and the other two standards will be tested in all the three cities. The practical test project is as follow: In terms of TD-SCDMA, there were four systems provided by four different companies and there were test phones at present. Its most service platforms could share with WCDMA, only a few need to be built individually. In terms of WCDMA, it was maturer relatively. There were sixteen systems provided by twelve companies and eleven types of terminals from ten companies including most 3G terminals of WCDMA in the market at present. In terms of CDMA2000, there were nine systems from nine companies and 3~5 types of terminals from 2~3 companies. In the demand of deploying networks, the test network was not interconnected with the 2G networks. Each technique was bestrewed continuously and overlaped each other in every city. All core networks of the three types of technology should be interconnected and intercommunicated, as well as the different operators. In the test of deploying networks, it also included the radio interference test in near frequency band between 3G standard network and PHS, GSM1800 systems. At present, TD-SCDMA has already begun to build test networks and implement indoor tests; WCDMA and CDMA2000 have already started their test in late March and late April respectively. Mr. Wen ku said that they have found many problems in the test by now, especially the problem of intercommunication between terminals. We must resolve the problem of intercommunication between various point-to-point services as quickly as possible. By far, the test objects, which should be satisfied, have already been reached.

Mr. Zhou huan, the chairman of the TD-SCDMA forum, made a speech with the topic of “Leading the TD-SCDMA Time to create infinite chances”. He pointed out that TD-SCDMA used many advanced technologies such as smart antenna, software radio and joint detection, so it had many technical advantages especially the high usage of spectrum. As a result, TD-SCDMA has many benefits for the operators, vendors and customers. At present, the R4 version of TD-SCDMA has been stable and the R5 and R6 version are being improved. It is delightful that the development process of TD-SCDMA industrialization has been quickened apparently, and more and more companies both in domestic and in foreign have joined in the TD-SCDMA industry alliance. The six chinese operators would all attend the field test of TD-SCDMA in Beijing and Shanghai. Datang has published their first TD-SCDMA mobile phone in March this year, and the other companies would launch more TD-SCDMA chips and mobile phones by the end of this year. Furthermore, there are many countries have assigned their TDD spectrum in the world, so TD-SCDMA has good application future in the world’s 3G markets. We believed that under the support of Chinese government and many companies, TD-SCDMA would achieve great success in the end.

Mr. Ling haifeng, the secretary-general of TD-SCDMA forum, the chairman of UMTS forum, the execution majordomo of CDG，the delegates of 3GPP organization and the delegates of GSA organization all attended the media release. At first, Mr. Ling introduced the situation of TD-SCDMA forum. He said the TD-SCDMA forum is an international organization which intends to popularize TD-SCDMA standard in the world. At present, the forum has more than 420 members, which include the six top operators in China, most native and foreign vendors, financial institutions and research institutions. There are also some famous companies such as Siemens, Nortel Networks, Motorola, and Alcatel. Secondly, Mr. Ling analyzed the future of TD-SCDMA market. He said that Chinese government had assigned 155 MHz TDD spectrum, and each country where the 3G licenses are assigned had the TDD spectrum, therefore TD-SCDMA has wide application perspective all over the world. Mr. Ling thought that the success of 3G in China would influence the success of 3G intensely in the world. In Europe, the customers of 2G have almost been saturated. However, on the contrary, the rate of occupancy of the whole mobile communication market in China only reaches 15%, and there is large number of potential customers. Therefore, in China, TD-SCDMA has many business opportunities. Mr. Ling thought that recently the Chinese government’s attitude for 3G schedule gained enough time for the maturity of TD-SCDMA. Because of the obvious technical advantages of TD-SCDMA, the potential market perspective and the supports for TD-SCDMA from various fields, the future of TD-SCDMA is exciting. At present, more and more native and foreign manufacturers have joined in the TD-SCDMA industry alliance. Some operators from different areas such as operators from southeast Asia are keeping in touch with the forum. It is clear that the recognition and feasibility of TD-SCDMA are being cognized by more and more operators. At the end, Mr. Ling hoped that the TD-SCDMA forum can cooperate with telecommunication institutions, operators and other relevant industries all over the world so that TD-SCDMA can be applied broadly in the world.

Furthermore, Mr. Nie neng, the senior member of TD-SCDMA forum who came from Chongqing University of Post and Telecommunication made a speech with the topic of “Experiment of TD-SCDMA and Its Future Developmental Potential”; Mr. Tao xiongqiang, the vice president of Putian and chairman of TD-SCDMA industry alliance, made a speech named “The Developmental Opportunity Experiment of China TD-SCDMA Industry and Its Future developmental potential”; Mr. Adrian Scrase, the director of 3GPP mobile performance center and secretary of ETSI Item Negotiation Group, made a speech with the topic of “The Syncretism of TD-SCDMA and IMT-2000 evolution”; T3G , the senior member of TD-SCDMA forum, also attended the discussion of the conference.

You can visit the site: http://www.iir.com.hk/bc440/download313 to download the lecture data of this conference.