Guangzhou Wireless City Project to Adopt TD-SCDMA+WLAN Standard

Guangzhou, capital city of southern China's Guangdong Province, will adopt the homegrown 3G TD-SCDMA standard and Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) technologies in its municipal wireless network, domestic media reported on July 15.

According to Southern Daily, the Guangzhou municipal government signed a contract with China Mobile on July 10, under which the telecom operator pledged to invest over RMB 10 billion ($1.46 billion) to construct 12,000 TD-SCDMA base stations and 2,400 WLAN hotspots in Guangzhou over the next five years to enable wireless Internet access in the city by 2013.

The first phase of the wireless city project will be completed by the end of this year to support coverage in government office buildings and public facilities such as hospitals and libraries, according to the report. Wireless access will be provided free-of-charge for the first phase of the project though it is yet to be determined if this will be so for the entire project.

"TD-SCDMA is preferred by Chinese regional governments because it is homegrown and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology encourages the adoption of the standard. As such, China Mobile, which is making efforts to promote its 3G netbooks and wireless Internet services, will have the advantage to benefit from the wireless city project," Xiong Yuncai, an industry analyst with Industrial Securities, said.

Source: NTERFAX

Editor: Zhu Yanshan