China Mobile firing up TD-SCDMA trials this April

We've been hearing that China Mobile would have its act together and get TD-SCDMA ready well in advance of the 2008 Beijing Olympics since last November, and with merely months to spare, it seems things just may work out. Reportedly, the carrier is all set to begin commercial trials of the home cooked 3G standard on April 1st, where it will be tested in Shanghai, Tianjin, Shenyang, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Xiamen, Qinhuangdao and of course, Beijing. Initially, China Mobile Group will provide 20,000 lucky souls with free TD-SCDMA phones and subsidies of 800 yuan per month, while folks outside of that group can also walk into retail outlets and pick up discounted handsets on a whim. Maybe it's just us, but we'd probably hold off until those guinea pigs gave everyone else a heads-up of the network quality before we went dropping our own change on it.

[Via mocoNews]

[Jamar @ Mar 28th 2008 10:47AM]

I'll have to be honest- I live in Shanghai and I'm dismissing this out of hand. Wake me up when an internationally compatible 3G network is launched (which is actually supposed to be also next month- China Unicom's supposed to get UMTS up and running so time to drop China Mobile, I guess).

[LordFarkward @ Mar 28th 2008 12:49PM]

i wouldn't hold my breath if i were you - td-scdma is pretty much known to BE the main 3G network in China, they wouldn't have (lab) tested and developed it for so long if they didn't know they would launch it eventually

on top of that, i doubt that unicom would launch anything for now as i'm sure they're busy with their pre-restructuring work (seperating their GSM and CDMA businesses and selling them to china netcom and china telecom)

[nDee @ Mar 29th 2008 2:22AM]

Why can't they accept the truth that most people on this blue planet use GSM? Even TOSHIBA has terminated HDDVD, why are they still bringing out CDMA?
Yes Japanese has good devices over WCDMA but CHina?

[james @ Mar 28th 2008 11:04AM]

test

[Frankenstein Black @ Mar 28th 2008 11:22AM]

MEH! Another proprietary network with limited devices that you can't use anywhere globally. Good luck with that...

[Christian Martin @ Mar 28th 2008 1:07PM]

Did they rip off - sorry, "draw inspiration for" - their logo from the Boys and Girls Club of America?

[llren @ Mar 28th 2008 1:23PM]

Obviously you think too highly of this club, Pal. It may be a very large organization in US, but I doubt many in China even know about it.

[Christian Martin @ Mar 28th 2008 1:35PM]

Funny how when I was in China when I was a kid, I saw commercials for it all the time. I thought it was odd; that's the only reason I remember the logo.

I'm not your pal.

[munford @ Mar 28th 2008 3:06PM]

It's still quite distinctive from each other. CMCC logo has C and M in it, if you look carefully.

[Tim @ Mar 28th 2008 1:51PM]

pwnage

[Anu @ Apr 20th 2008 5:56AM]

Hello,

With 20 days on with this trial, does anyone know how the results are looking?
This technology is touted as providing bandwidth at much cheaper effective rates. Does anyone want to offer a view how true that might actually be?
Sure, take up by application providers, handset manufacturers will be a concern, but surely if it is much cheaper in the end consumers may drive that demand. Any thoughts welcome.