Kai-Fu Lee, president of Google China, predicts a quarter of China’s 1.3 billion people will be online by year’s end.

At the same time the number of mobile subscribers is expected to grow to 738 million by 2010.  Which is more than double the population of the United States.

Apple’s new 3G iPhone offers not just chat but Internet access.

The relatively inexpensive iPhone caters to the hundreds of millions of people who will trade in their current cellphones for their first ever opportunity of owning a mini-computer.

The iPhone launch in China represents the most significant technological product release of the last few decades. Steve Jobs, on introducing the 3G iPhone,  clearly stated that he sees China iPhone distribution deals being completed by year end.

The only question remaining is whether the new iPhone will cater for China’s own, home-grown 3G standard, TD-SCDMA.
Source: Seeking Alpha

China will issue 3G mobile licenses and certificates after the restructuring of its six big telecommunications operators. This according to Xi Guohua, vice minister of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of China.

The reorganization is expected to be completed in about six months.

According to the restructuring plan, the TD-SCDMA license is expected to be awarded to China Mobile, while the CDMA2000 license and the WCDMA license will go to China Telecom and the new China Unicom respectively.

Xi Guohua said that foreign visitors will NOT be able to use their WCDMA and CDMA2000 EVDO mobile phones in China during the OIympic Games. However, they will be able to hire mobiles using TD-SCDMA.

China Mobile said it will offer at least 20,000 3G handsets for hire during the Olympic Games.

When asked whether the mobile phone network would work if the 100,000 audience at the Bird’s Nest made phone calls at the same time during the opening ceremony of the Olympics, Xi Guohua said, ‘Although China Netcom and China Mobile have greatly expanded the capacity, we could not guarantee that the network will operate at any minute but it will by no means be paralysed.’
Source: ZDNet Asia and China View

Electronic Engineering Times has published a major attack on TD-SCDMA.

(Before accepting it at its face value it should be remembered that significant royalties would have flowed from China to the United States if TD-SCDMA had NOT been mandated by the Chinese government. This home version does not pay royalties to American companies)

The article states that ‘if there was ever a standard that should never have come to be, it’s time-division, synchronous code-division multiple access (TD-SCDMA).’ The article thinks that it will fade away after the Olympics.

It adds: ‘Unless, of course, China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) continues to ram the standard down the throat of a reluctant China Mobile, while at the same time further delaying the issuance of licenses for the third-generation cellular technologies the rest of the world is using: wideband CDMA and cdma2000. Such a delay would give TD-SCDMA the breathing room it needs to overcome certain technical hurdles and extend its coverage.’

A phrase like ‘ram the standard down the throat’ does not suggest impartial journalism.

The article agrees the code itself is fine. What it is concerned about is testing and improvement. It states: ‘That’s where the problem arises. Mobile wireless tests take time and money. The latter seems to know no bounds, and the former is running out as China falls further behind the rest of the world in its 3G rollout.’

You can read the rest of this article HERE but you should bear in mind that it is written for American telecommunication companies who would make very, very serious money if China abandoned TD-SCDMA.
Source: TMC Net. This article originally appeared in ‘EETimes.com’ but the signing on process is so impenetrable and user-hateful it is best to go elsewhere. The links given connect to the full article. The two illustrations are both of TD-SCDMA mobiles. The bottom one by Samsung.

China Mobile will join the TD-SCDMA Industry Alliance. China Mobile will also distribute the Apple iPhone.

Will the iPhone be configured to work with TD-SCDMA?

Few know and they are not telling.

The TD-SCDMA Alliance now contains Huawei; China Mobile; China P&T Appliances; Wuhan Dopod; MeidaTek; Beijing Creative Century; Digimoc Telecom Technology (Shanghai);NTS (Chengdu) Technology.

Three new members are Fujian Vtion; Hangzhou EB Information;and Wingtech.

Yang Hua, secretary general of TD-SCDMA Industry Alliance, said the participation of China Mobile and China P&T Appliance means the TD-SCDMA Industry Alliance gives a complete coverage of the industry chain from operators to manufacturers.

TD-SCDMA Industry Alliance now has 58 members across China.
Source: China Tech News

Apple’s new store, located in Beijing’s Sanlitun entertainment district, is now open for business. This is the first in China but the 219th worldwide. Apple sees China as the definitive market for expansion.

Ron Johnson, Apple’s senior vice president of retail, said, ‘This is the first of many stores we will open in China. Indeed, another store is planned near to the one that has just opened.’

But the store is not selling, as yet, the iPhone, either in its early 2G (second-generation telephony) version or the new 3G (third-generation telephony) model. Although negotiations between Apple and China Mobile — the world’s and China’s largest mobile service provider — have taken place over the last 12 months, no firm details have been announced.

An estimated 400,000 to 1 million of the original iPhones are in use in China, according to research firm In-Stat, despite it never being officially launched here.

The 3G iPhone, launched July 11 in the U.S. and some Asian markets such as Japan and Hong Kong, faces a particular challenge in China. The country does not have commercial 3G service yet, and when it does, it will start with home-grown TD-SCDMA (Time Division Synchronous Code Division Multiple Access) which is incompatible with other 3G formats.

Now, what Chinese users will be able to get is Apple’s complete line of computers and iPods, including the iPod Touch. What they really want is the iPhone.
Source: PC World

Yang Ping is the chief of the local Communist Party of China (CPC) discipline inspection commission in Zhuzhou, Hunan province.

But the 47-year-old is better known among local Internet users as ‘classmate Yang’.

Since he first registered and logged onto the Zhuzhou Forum of Hunan-based news portal on May 14, Yang has posted 216 topics that have garnered huge response from the online community.

One of his postings, titled ‘Eight Problems with Zhuzhou Officials’ Work Style,’ was read 18,697 times and received 502 replies.

Yang is just one of the many government officials and deputies to the local and national legislatures — the people’s congresses — who have come to value the Internet as an important channel for expressing public opinion in the country.

President Hu Jintao (seen in our illustration), when Internet users asked how he spent his time online, during an online chat with them on June 20, said:

‘I log on to view domestic and foreign news, to learn of people’s interests, and to solicit their advice and opinion about the work of our government and Party.
‘I am very interested in the advice and opinions raised.
‘We must listen to the people and lean on their wisdom to do a good job.’

Seeking people’s advice from the Internet is now becoming routine for officials.

At the annual session of the National People’s Congress this year, many representatives worked out their proposals by collecting public opinion from blogs.

Much, much more on this HERE.
Source: English People’s Online Daily

The latest study from MasterCard examines Asian e-commerce trends:

* Asian e-commerce will grow by 23% a year for the next decade.
* China will replace Japan as the largest online shopping market in Asia by 2010.
* MasterCard expects 480 million Chinese to spend a staggering $1.4 trillion over the Internet.
* Chinese advertisers are expected to spend $2.6 billion into online ads by 2010.

Beneficiaries will be the Chinese web portals: Bidu.com, Sina.com, Sohu.com, Netease.com and Chinese advertising companies: Focus Media, Hurray Holdings , Vision China Media.

Perhaps the big winner will be China Mobile. Since it was spun off from fixed-line operator China Telecom in 2000, China Mobile has grown into the world’s largest wireless service provider.

In addition to traditional calling services, the company offers value-added services such as caller ID, call waiting, call forwarding, voice mail, conference calling, instant messaging, text messaging, as well as accessing the Internet.

Mobile phones — not PCs — are the new computers in China. More on this HERE.
Source: Money and Markets

Sony has begun selling what are called built-to-order personal computers in China and will probably eventually go world wide.

It hopes to increase its PC sales by 30% this fiscal year.

This ‘built-to-order label’ is somewhat misleading. All you are doing is changing the specifications within fairly restricted boundaties.

Basically you can chose between four processors, built-in software and two body designs and a few colors.

In other words Sony does not build a computer for you from scratch. (There are some small boutique companies that will do this for you — at a price.) Instead it lets you select from a fairly restricted list.

Dell probably pioneered it and made it into the center part of its marketing plan. And NEC and a few other PC makers also sell tailor-made models.

The downside is you order today and get delivery in two weeks.

Sony plans to make customization a core element of the sales experience in China although this may be difficult.
Source: Trading Markets

Lenovo will manufacture a PC designed to make e-commerce easier for small and medium-sized Chinese businesses.

Equipped with e-commerce applications from Alibaba, the new computers will be based on Lenovo’s Yangtian desktop PC line. They will be available from September.

Intel and Alibaba announced plans in May to build an e-commerce PC but they didn’t have a manufacturer for the computer, or a firm date for when the computers would be available.

While the release date for the computers is now clear, other details have yet to be announced.

Lenovo’s statement did not detail technical specifications of the new PC line, except to say the computers will be based on Intel processors made using a 45-nanometer manufacturing process.

The e-commerce PC will not be a ‘nettop,’ a term the chip maker uses to describe low-cost desktops based on Atom processors. It will be a proper desktop.
Source: Network World

Alibaba’s subsidiary China Yahoo has for the first time made an apology to Qihu360 for the improper competitive practices its service Yahoo! Assistant has brought to Qihu360.

China Yahoo has made the apology on its home page, saying that ‘Beijing Alibaba Information Technology Co., Ltd and www.3721.com have executed improper competition to Beijing Sanji Wuxian Network Technology Co., Ltd’s Qihu360, hence we published the apology statement according to a civil judgment made in 2007.’

Both parties have been low-key as far as the apology is concerned. China Yahoo says that they have reached a reconciliation with Qihu360 and they have recognized each other’s efforts in the industry.

The confrontation between Alibaba’s Yahoo Assistant and Qihu360 originated in 2006, when in July of that year Qihu360 launched a free anti-virus service and listed Yahoo Assistant as malware.

In return it was blocked by Yahoo’s 3721. From then on, the parties began to fight against each other with different software and the war between them finally resulted in a series of lawsuits.
Source: China Tech News