China gives the nod to Western 3G standards

China's Ministry of Information Industry has approved the use of European and US standards for 3G mobile phones, according to the Chinese news agency Xinhua.

The European WCDMA and American CDMA2000 join the previously approved Chinese TD-SCDMA standard as legal options for China's nascent 3G industry, with the government promising deployment in time for next year's Beijing Olympics. All four major Chinese operators - China Mobile, China Netcom, China Telecom and China Unicom - have said they are investing in 3G.

According to Xinhua, Xi Guohua, vice minister of information industry, said: "We will let operators choose which standard they want to use. But the government will decide how many 3G licences are issued."

No 3G licences have been awarded as yet. Although TD-SCDMA had been approved in 2006, global manufacturers have been reluctant to produce handsets for the standard, with only Motorola and Samsung developing products.

Last year, China failed in an attempt to get international acceptance for its locally developed Wapi (wired authentication and privacy infrastructure) wireless encryption standards, leading to accusations of conspiracy and unethical behaviour within the IEEE standardisation committee, and counter-claims that details of Wapi had been kept secret from standards organisations.

Rupert Goodwins writes for ZDNet UK