China Unicom, China’s second-largest mobile operator, says it has signed up more than 1 million subscribers to its new WCDMA-based 3G network to date, but warned that the costs of rolling out and promoting 3G will continue to weigh on margins.
According to a Reuters report, Unicom sold 5,000 iPhones on the first weekend. “We are satisfied with iPhone sales so far, and we aim to have an additional 1 million new 3G subscribers each month in the near future,” he said.
In August, Unicom signed a three-year non-exclusive deal to sell Apple’s popular iPhone in China. China Unicom is selling the iPhone in 285 cities. The iPhone handsets lack Wi-Fi, though reports say China Unicom expects to offer Wi-Fi-enabled iPhones within a few months.
The carrier hopes to sell 5 million devices in three years, according to Chinese news reports, but the company wouldn’t confirm that figure, reports C/Net.
All three Chinese operators, China Mobile (TD-SCDMA), the largest mobile operator on the planet, China Unicom (GSM), China’s 2nd largest mobile operator, and China Telecom (CDMA), the 3rd largest mobile telecommunication provider in China, are in the process of rolling-out 3G services.
A TDD version of LTE, mostly driven by China Mobile, is currently being trialed in China by multiple vendors, reports the always cogent Monica Paolini. A femtocell prototype from Nokia was on display in Geneva in China Mobile’s booth. Combined (TDD and FDD) chipsets in subscriber devices will make it easier to roam across TDD and FDD networks, but it’s still uncertain where and how TD-LTE will be deployed in other countries.
At this stage, TD-LTE appears to have better prospects than FDD WiMAX, but it is interesting to see that while it is not possible at this stage for WiMAX and LTE to converge into a single standard, they seem to increasingly cross paths and move in the same direction, says Paolini.
