By Li Qiaoyi
China Mobile has stepped up its 3G game, signing a joint agreement on communications equipment as the country's other two service providers add friction to the 3G market.
China's largest telecom operator in terms of net profit will inject 600 million yuan ($87.88 million) into a joint research project aimed at attracting manufactures to codevelop terminal equipment based on TD-SCDMA. The independent technology from China is used exclusively by China Mobile for its 3G services.
The joint agreement was signed over the weekend with nine mobile terminal manufacturers and three chip manufacturers.
Motorola, Samsung, LG and a range of domestic firms agreed to invest in the project. Over 1.2 billion yuan ($175.68 million), including China Mobile's 600 million yuan, will help fund TD-SCDMA technology and services.
China Mobile recorded a 72 percent market share in the country's mobile market last year. However after acquiring a 3G license based on TD-SCDMA in January, the long-anticipated 3G era is posing a threat to the retention of subscribers. TD-SCDMA is a new and relatively immature technology from China. China Unicom and China Telecom have licenses for WCDMA and CDMA2000 technology respectively, both heavily used in other countries.
China Unicom, having already acquired the most widely adopted WCDMA, is attempting to enhance its market share via the development of its own mobile operation system (MOS). The system is able to provide an operating platform for mobiles, netbooks and wireless network cards, attracting many terminal manufactures.
China Unicom announced Sunday that it will join Open Handset Alliance to develop a MOS based on Android, a software platform initially developed by Google.
At the same time, China Telecom released 3G phones by Samsung, LG, Huawei and Dopod.
China Telecom held its third round of bidding for 3G mobile phones based on CDMA2000 technology in March. The move attracted more than 60 manufacturers with over 200 phone models presented. The company also set up an independent mobile terminal subsidiary company known as E-surfing in November.