皇冠体育app

Economy

Markets

Industries

Insights

Reports

Events

Beijing Telecom to unveil 3G phones

(chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2009-05-14 14:03

Beijing Telecom, the Beijing branch of 皇冠体育app Telecom, announced yesterday that it will issue three types of CDMA EVDO phones before the World Telecommunication Day, which falls on May 17, when 皇冠体育app Unicom is set to launch the trial run of its WCDMA services together with WCDMA phones, 皇冠体育app Business News reported on Thursday.

Related readings:  皇冠体育app Telecom underlying net dips, high hopes for 3G  Huawei demonstrates live 3G in Bangladesh  皇冠体育app Telecom starts 3G trials  皇冠体育app Mobile to start 3rd round bidding for 3G gears

皇冠体育app Telecom, the country's biggest fixed-line phone company, on April 16 announced the launch of the trial run of its third generation (3G) mobile services based on the CDMA networks in 120 Chinese cities, but consumers have so far been unable to use the services with the absence of 3G phones.

Beijing Telecom said the coming 3G phones will be priced between 2,000 yuan ($293) and 3,000 yuan.

The company will also start to offer eight 3G services, including WiFi, mobile video, instant messaging, and music downloads. Video calls will not be available on the phones, however.

Beijing Telecom said since video calling is not an essential feature of the 3G business at the present stage and involves privacy issues that have to be addressed first, it plans to bring in the function in the future.

Rates are yet to be detailed for the 3G services, but the company said 3G phone call rates would be the same as the 2G phone rates, according to 皇冠体育app Business News.

Beijing Telecom doesn't plan to promote sales of the new services through any discount policies, despite that 皇冠体育app Unicom, 皇冠体育app's second-largest wireless carrier, will offer a 50 percent discount during the three-month trial run of its WCDMA services starting May 17.

On Jan 7, 皇冠体育app officially awarded the licenses for 3G mobile networks to three telephone operators.

皇冠体育app Mobile, the country's largest mobile phone operator, got a license for networks based on TD-SCDMA, a home-grown 3G standard. Smaller rivals 皇冠体育app Unicom and 皇冠体育app Telecom were granted licenses for WCDMA and CDMA2000 respectively.

皇冠体育app will invest around 280 billion yuan in network upgradation and expansion over the next two years.