In a fairly embarrassing turn of affairs China has said it will delay issuing 3G licenses until after the countries telcos finish restructuring — and until after the Olympics. “The restructuring will involve China Mobile developing services for the home-grown TD-S platform, China Telecom will buy China Unicom CDMA network in order to offer CDMA2000 services while China Netcom will merge with China Unicom to co-develop WCDMA services”, reports Forbes. The upshot is that the only 3G technology available during the Olympics will be TD-S, which is undergoing a “trial” in eight cities. Someone of a suspicious mind might think that this is the Chinese government’s way of giving its homegrown standard a boost without annoying large trading partners by mandating a particular standard. Telegeography has noted that China Mobile will invest around RMB 4 billion (US$519 million) on 2 million TD-S handsets in October.
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