ARLINGTON HEIGHTS: Wireless technology giant Motorola Inc. said on Tuesday it
signed a contract to expand and upgrade China Mobile Communications Corp.'s GPRS,
or general packet radio service, network.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed by the company, based in the Chicago
suburb of Schaumburg, Illinois. The expansion also includes infrastructure
equipment from networking giant Cisco Systems Inc. .
GPRS telephones offer "always-on" Internet access and are the
intermediate step towards 3G, or third-generation, technology that promises
multimedia on wireless phones. Motorola was the first company to offer GPRS
phones.
The equipment will be installed in seven major Chinese provinces and
municipalities, including Beijing, Motorola said. The company said its gear
could be installed over an existing GSM, or global system for mobile
communications, network, allowing telephone operators to use existing
infrastructure.
GSM, which competes with the CDMA, or code division multiple access,
standard, is the dominant mobile phone technology in China.
"With GPRS, subscribers in these regions will be able to access
high-speed mobile data services and obtain Internet-based content and services
via their mobile phones. It ... works as a key step in the smooth evolution of
GSM networks to 3G capabilities," Ruey Bin Kao, Motorola vice president and
general manager of the China Telecom Carrier Solutions Group, said in a
statement.
Motorola said it will significantly upgrade China Mobile's existing GSM
networks in the same seven regions plus 10 other provinces and special
municipalities in the country. The expansion program, scheduled for completion
by the end of the year, will increase the network capacity in the seven
provinces and municipalities by up to 350,000 subscribers.
Motorola launched its first Chinese-language GPRS mobile telephone for the
China market earlier this year. It is being made in Motorola's factory in
Tianjin, China.
According to the Chinese government, the number of mobile phone users in
China reached 120.6 million by the end of July, making China the biggest mobile
subscriber market in the world, Motorola said.
China Mobile is a state-owned enterprise established after the reorganization
of China's telecommunications industry last year. It is the largest GSM operator
in China with a network that offers national coverage to more than 92 million
subscribers.
(C) Reuters Limited 2001.