28/05/2012

IDG Connect Dan Swinhoe (China)- China's 4G Ambitions

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Dan Swinhoe (China)- China's 4G Ambitions

Posted b y Dan Swinhoe Company IDG Connect 05/27/2012

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In your article you ask "what do you think of the ePrivacy Directive, and how has it affected you?" In my opinion, the movements in e-Privacy Directive,... Guido Sanchidrian 4G is the future. Worldwide 3G is b ecoming slower and more unreliab le as it b uckles under the weight of huge amount of data from mob ile devices that are b eing used to watch video, stream songs, access social networks and, occasionally, make phone calls and text. 4G is the next generation of wireless networking, delivering speeds to rival home-b ased b roadb and. China's relationship with 3G suffered some serious teething troub les. Arriving late to the game, it took until 2009 for China to approve 3G licenses and then instead of using the widely used version, they adopted a home-grown technology called TD-SCDMA. The solitary nature of this technology meant most major suppliers, Apple included, weren't compatib le and so mob ile operators in the region missed out, instead relying on the slower and mostly outdated 2G networks. With 4G China's government and its mob ile operators are clearly trying to stay ahead of the game. Recent figures from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology put the country's numb er of 3G users at 152 million, which accounts for a shade under half of all the mob ile internet users and has seen a ten-fold rise in the last two years. But China is way b ehind in the mob ile internet game. 152 million sounds a lot, b ut it pales in comparison to the 900 million-odd people using phones without internet capab ilities. Ob viously with such numb ers involved companies are keen to tap into the potential and get more people to switch over to smart phones. Currently there are two variants of 4G; LTE FDD (Frequency Division Duplex), used b y mob ile operators in countries such as the US, Japan, much of Europe, and the Philippines and TD-LTE (LTE TDD outside of China), China's own 4G network it has b een developing. China are pushing hard to make their version of 4G the glob al standard. It has b een developed with Bharti Airtel and Vodafone and has received the b acking of Japan's Softb ank Mob ile and Germany's E-Plus. Already trials are b eing conducted and proved a success. So far 4G has b een rolled out in selected regions, including Hong Kong, and the result for China Mob ile was a 3.5% rise in quarterly profits. The latest services have gone live in Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Nanjing and Hangzhou, and capital Beijing is to follow next. The Chinese government has included next-generation mob ile communication as a strategically important industry in the country's five-year plan, and China Mob ile CEO has promised there will b e no price war over 4G, instead focusing on rolling quality service. According to Sina News, the cost of developing 4G is much cheaper than 3G, and China Mob ile will b e pushing the technology hard, hoping to have b uilt 200,000 4G b ase stations b y the end of 2013. Europe: Cookie law now in place, are you compliant? http://t.co/hufpiC0D Follow idgconnect on Twitter South Africa: How to connect rural areas (part 2) http://t.co/q48xUXtK Glob al: Faceb ook to launch its own smartphone? http://t.co/4oaSqNsa View all comments
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This a totally useless and dumb move. Firstly, all newer b rowsers have internal storage which can hold much more data than the cookies. In fact, less... Vanco Ordanoski 05-25-2012

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IDG Connect Dan Swinhoe (China)- China's 4G Ambitions

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How China fares with 4G will have a massive impact on Telecoms companies around the world. Many device makers will want to b reak into the market in a way they couldn't with 3G, and so are likely to push for it in other markets. As an example, Apple is on the b rink of agreeing that future iPhones will support China's TD-LTE. This is b ound to mean iPhone sales will surge, and mob ile operators and manufacturers are likely to fall in line with the daddy of smartphones and adopt or at least create devices compatib le with China's 4G. Some companies already are. In the U.S., Clearwire plans to start deploying such a network within the year, after forming a partnership with China Mob ile to develop products and equipment using TD-LTE together. Recently plans have hit a recent snag, with the government planning to withhold licenses for 4G for two or three years, which could give LTE FDD the time it needs to expand and b ecome the glob al standard. A few countries have already adopted TD-LTE, Namib ia b eing one with Ghana set to follow soon, and b reaking to Africa could offset the delay. It's hard to tell, b ut whatever happens, the story is always the same with China; expect b ig things. Dan Swinhoe, Editorial Assistant, IDG

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