Nokia Siemens Networks is set to get a good slice of the 3G equipment pie in China this year, reports Unstrung.
The vendor announced today that it has agreements in place with China Unicom and China Mobile that are valued at 7.6 billion Renminbi (US$1.1 billion) during 2009 for 2G and 3G equipment and services.
For China Unicom, Nokia Siemens will roll out WCDMA networks in 11 Chinese provinces. For China Mobile, Nokia Siemens will provide China’s homegrown 3G standard TD-SCDMA networks as well as GSM networks.
China has restructured the telecom service provider market to create three mega fixed and mobile operators — China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecommunications — and issued 3G licenses.
Operators plan to invest tens of billions of dollars to build out their mobile infrastructures. Reportedly, China’s Minister for Industry and Information Technology, Li Yizhong, has said operator 3G-related capex is estimated to be at least $29 billion this year.
Nokia Siemens says it has six research and development centers in China and that it is pioneering work on the next generation of China’s 3G TD-SCDMA standard, a time division duplex (TDD) version of Long-Term Evolution (LTE), called TD-LTE, which is championed by China Mobile.
China Mobile refers to its TD-SCDMA network as a “large-scale trial” that comprises 15,000 base stations. But China Mobile’s aggressive timescale for 4G LTE makes deploying 3G TD-SCDMA an open question, says Unstrung.
The primary regulator of telecommunications in China is the Ministry of Information Industry (MII). It closely regulates all telecom industries with the exception of the radio and television sectors, which are under the State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television.
Research and Markets estimates over $40 billion USD will be invested in China’s 3G market.
On 7 Jan, 2009, The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued three, 3G mobile telephone licenses. China Mobile got a TD-SCDMA license; China Telecom got a CDMA2000 license and China Unicom got a WCDMA license. China Telecom bought China Unicom’s CDMA network.
China Telecom is the largest fixed-line telephone company in the world, but it has little experience in mobile communications services. China Mobile, which got the TD-SCDMA license, is the world’s largest mobile phone operator, ranked by number of subscribers, with 415 million customers.
