Finally after years of setbacks, China has finally agreed to license three 3G wireless standards soon enabling Chinese citizens faster mobile internet access and multimedia use–not to mention higher data revenues for telecommunications companies. China has long been holding out in hopes it would eventually roll out its own TD-SCDMA standard–really a failed 3G technology from Germany’s Siemens–in order to avoid paying foreign companies royalties for their own technologies. TD-SCDMA will be one of the 3G technologies China will back, but due to its lackluster success in test runs, the country will also license CDMA 2000–mainly used in the United States–and WCDMA–mainly used in Europe.
Royalty payments or not, Chinese availability of 3G will likely do wonders for the country’s telecommunications sector which services over 600 million mobile phone subscribers. Data revenues will likely skyrocket over the next year and handset manufacturers such as Huawei–a member of the Android Open Handset Alliance–will benefit in kind.
Estimates figure China could have over 150 million 3G mobile subscribers by 2010. Companies like Huawei and other Chinese manufacturers which will probably come out of the woodwork now could use a free and open-source operating system like Android to power many of these phones. Which makes me wonder: will China soon be the country of highest Android adoption?
(Image Credit: 2 dogs)