China’s first national CDMA (code division multiple access) mobile phone network was completed by China Unicom at the end of October 2001 and construction of the second phase of the network is due to begin early in 2002, China Daily said. The first phase, with a capacity of 15m subscribers, will go into operation in January 2002. Capacity will increase as the system expands and is planned to reach 50m subscribers by 2003.
Ten equipment vendors participated in the construction of the first phase of the network, sharing contracts worth Yn12.1bn. They included two foreign companies, Lucent Technologies and Motorola.