TD-SCDMA ready to battle other 3G standards

Even though LTE standards have been released recently, China Mobile will be rolling out the pre-LTE, TD-SCDMA technology soon. The TD-LTE flavour of LTE will eventually supercede TD-SCDMA probably in couple of years.

China Mobile has decided to launch TD-SCDMA mobile handsets which will procured from three manufacturers. The telco has selected LG Electronics, ZTE and Yulong Computer Telecommunication Scientific (Shenzhen) as the suppliers of handsets. The manufacturers will offer four types of TD-SCDMA handsets to China Mobile of which two will be produced by Yulong Telecom. China Mobile will also keep aside CNY 650 million to finance TD-SCDMA terminal manufacturers’ R&D. The first batch of these handsets is anticipated to enter the market before 17 May.

By far, China Mobile has completed the second-phase TD-SCDMA network construction in 28 Chinese cities. And the batch of service-built-in mobile phones are expected to enter the market before May 17, 2009, when the three mobile telecom operators start full 3G services. In fact, China Mobile has put great efforts into TD-SCDMA terminals, in order to make a hit in the coming Chinese 3G telecom epoch.

Days ago, it announced the list of 29 types of TD-SCDMA service-built-in netbooks. Such netbooks with six brands like Lenovo, Dell, Haier, Founder, HP will be exclusively sold by the telecom operator. Earlier, it disclosed that it would set aside CNY 650 million to finance TD-SCDMA terminal manufacturers' R&D.

In addition, China Mobile plans to set up a TD-SCDMA industrial park in the eastern Chinese province of Zhejiang before 2011, involving a total investment of CNY 1 billion, said one of its executives.

In the first quarter of 2009, the company achieved operating revenue and net profit of CNY 101.269 billion and CNY 25.201 billion, up 9.2% and 5.2% year on year, citing its financial report.

By the end of March, the number of its subscribers had reached 477.16 million, representing a slowed growth of 19.91 million, due to a demand drop caused by the decelerating macroeconomic, squeezed space for mobile telecoms popularity increase, and intensified competition after a far-reaching asset reshuffle among the country's telecoms operators.

Besides, its average revenue per user (ARPU) was CNY 73 in the first three months, down CNY 10 from a quarter earlier, because of an increase in low-end users and application of a new charging plan.

This week, China Mobile Ltd announced the result of its third-round TD-SCDMA equipment bidding with a total contract value of RMB 8.6 billion, sources reported.

A total of eight companies won contracts in this round of TD procurement, including six domestic companies and two foreign firms.

Datang Telecom Technology Co Ltd and Alcatel Shanghai Bell Co Ltd together won a 23% share of the bidding. Huawei Technologies Co Ltd and ZTE Corp, two leading providers of telecommunications equipment and network solutions in China, won 20% and 18% respectively.

Meanwhile, another three domestic vendors, namely New Postcom, Fiberhome Telecommunication Technologies and Putian Group, won a combined 29% share of the bidding.
Nokia Siemens Networks and Ericsson Inc each took a 5% share of it.

China Mobile earlier said it plans to build TD-SCDMA networks in 200 Chinese cities by the end of this year.

Analyst Zhang Jun of China's Web MKI told PC World that China Mobile is currently evaluating phones from Dell, with a view to creating a co-branded product running the cellco's own software platform. The largest Chinese mobile operator is determined to retain the upper hand in the balance of power and brand with handset makers, and to take a Japanese-style level of active involvement in development. In particular, it has said it plans to create its own software platform, called Open Mobile System (OMS), based on Android but with specific operator variations at all layers, and it will also open an applications store to support this.

Such a scenario clearly requires one or more biddable handset partners, and Dell could well step in, alongside various Chinese suppliers, since it would gain such a major springboard for the mobile market via Mobile's huge user base. It would not only have to support the China-specific operating system, though, but would also have to incorporate the TD-SCDMA 3G standard, as well as GSM. Dell will also offer a TD-SCDMA netbook with the launch of its Inspiron Mini 10 in China this week.

According to Zhang, other vendors working on TD-SCDMA/OMS phones include Huawei, ZTE, HTC and Lenovo. The last of these should get to market first with the so-called OPhone.

Finally, Samsung Electronics intends to introduce its 3G mobile phones in China. The fifteen 3G mobile devices are part of the company’s new products in the second quarter. Products based on China’s TD-SCDMA standard include the B7702C dual-mode handsets, digital TV handsets, multimedia handsets and fashionable handsets. Products modified for China Unicom include the S7520U HSDPA-supported high-end multimedia mobile phones, online movie, internet, and music-supported mobile phones. The mobile phones customised for China Telecom include the W709, the M609, the W239, and theF539 models.

Lights, 8 Megapixel Camera, Action!

Samsung recently announced exclusive deals for its 8 Megapixel Camera phone Innov8 (Innovate ;) a.k.a. Samsung i8510 or GT-i8510.

Its a 3.5G Symbian smartphone with an 8 megapixel camera, WiFi and GPS, plus an advanced multimedia player and a whole host of other features that compete head on with the Nokia N96 and N95 8GB. The "8" in "Innov8" refers to the i8510's advanced 8 megapixel camera. This has autofocus and a dual LED flash, plus an image stabiliser, panoramic stitching, face detection and a number of other clever features lifted straight out of Samsung's dedicated digital camera range. Sometimes we have seen disappointing video capture quality with some rival phones, but not so with the Innov8 which is capable of recording VGA resolution video at 30 frames per second, or QVGA resolution at 120 frames per second. The Innov8 also has built-in video editing and an FM radio with RDS, plus stereo Bluetooth and a 3.5mm audio output socket.

More features, pictures, etc in Mobile Gazette website.

Note that Samsung has previously already released 10 Megapixel camera with 3x Optical zoom. The SCH-B600 was shown off in CeBit in 2006. Dont know if it was launched in Europe anywhere.

Reiter's Camera Phone report has some interesting statistics on Camera phones. One of the interesting bit of information was summary of Ofcom communication Market report 2007. Based on that 84% of the phones sold in UK now have camera and 38% of people surveyed said that they use their mobile camera regularly. Another article mentions that 40% of Japanese print camera phone photos. More Interesting bits on Reiter's camera phone report.

There is another set of statistics from wirefly.com (via Click Chic) for US:

• 63.8 percent of users ages 18-30 say they use their cell phone’s camera at least once a week, while 26.3 percent reported using it daily
• “Family events” and “scenery/sightseeing” remain the top reasons cited for using a camera phone, but social uses separated the younger adults from the over-30 crowd - 58.3 percent of cell phone users ages 18-30 report using a cell phone regularly “to document nightlife,” while just 29.9 percent of those over 30 made a similar claim.
• individuals ages 18-30 use their camera phones to publish photos to online social media four times as much as respondents over 30 years of age.
• 96.3 percent of adult cell phone owners report that they have a cell phone with a camera. (No surprise here, since most cell phones now come with a camera.)
• 19 percent of adults prefer to use their cell phone as their primary camera for all photography.
• 77.2 percent of photos taken remain stored in the phone, 45.4 percent are used as wall-paper and 38.6 percent are sent to friends via MMS.
• 20.2 percent of respondents say they have snapped a photo of an attractive man/woman, and 7.5 percent have photographed an unsuspecting stranger.
• 46.4 percent of all adults and two-thirds of adults age 18-30 say they use their cell phone to snap self-portraits.
• 19.8 percent say they have snuck a picture while pretending to do something else.

Things have changed since Nokia became the biggest Camera manufacturer. Over the last couple of years the resolution of phone cameras have improved and at the same time the quality has improved as well. The are now coming with much better equipped cameras with professional quality lens.

Martin pointed out in his post earlier that Flickr maintains live statistics of the cameras being used to upload photos. In his post in January he mentioned that Nokia N95 has just overtaken N73 but I can see that Iphone is now the leader as can be seen above.

Phone Cameras is one area that is being seriously thought about in search for Killer applications.