China Mobile: Wireless Broadband for Shanghai

Posted on April 21, 2008
Filed Under China Business, China Internet, Mobile, Wireless Networks |

During the signing of a cooperation agreement with Shanghai Municipal Informatization Commission, China Mobile (CHL) (Shanghai) disclosed that the company would build more than 3000 3G base stations in Shanghai and apply such advanced wireless broadband technology as Wi-Fi and HSDPA throughout the city’s wireless infrastructure.

A representative from China Mobile (Shanghai) said that China Mobile would construct 3000 TD-SCDMA base stations in Shanghai this year as a part of its effort to realize full wireless broadband coverage of the city.

China Mobile (Shanghai) said it would bring WLAN wireless coverage to a convenient number of 666 Olympics-related venues before August this year and would realize full coverage of broadband for the World Expo in Shanghai by 2010. It will launch wireless community services on a trial basis and improve its mobile political affairs service. The political affairs service keeps Chinese citizens in touch with their local communities via SMS and local government websites.

There are currently about 6000 2G base stations in Shanghai.

China Telecom already has plans in place (and a pilot project running in one of Shanghai’s districts) for city-wide WiFi network. Broadband will be their bread and butter in the face of declining fixed-line subscriptions. As China Telecom is expected to get a piece of China Unicom in the anticipated rearrangement of China’s telecoms industry, news that China Mobile is moving into broadband wireless cannot be of any comfort to them.

The WiFi service that both China Telecom and China Mobile plan on rolling out is just for the interim. It’s mobile broadband that everyone will want once the equipment is available and cheapish. That’s when China Telecom will really start competing with China Mobile directly. Not a very cheering prospect for China Telecom, I assure you.

And the bad news is coming sooner rather than later. Shanghai Daily, in an article about Motorola winning a license to sell TD-SCDMA phones, notes:

There have been 11 TD-SCDMA phone models and four data card models on the market.

China Mobile has purchased the first batch of 60,000 TD-SCDMA phones and 15,000 data cards through public bidding, previous reports said.

Six handset firms won bids — ZTE, Lenovo, LG, Samsung, AMOI and Datang.

The data cards are PCMCIA devices that slip into notebooks. I haven’t seen any of them yet, but it would seem that China Mobile’s wireless broadband users will soon enjoy:

…less-than-expected network signal coverage and high fees for data services. Some complained that the coverage of the TD-SCDMA network, which allows users to access high-speed Internet, was not satisfactory and was not stable, previous reports said.

China Telecom is looking at WiMAX to support its mobile broadband. Shanghai could become an interesting battleground between the competing technologies. Competing providers and competing technologies? Maybe there are some roses for the consumer to be found in 3G’s thorny launch in China.