Wang Jianzhou, China Mobile's chairman and CEO said that by the end of this year TD-SCDMA network will cover 238 cities, ensuring coverage in 70 percent of the country's metropolitan areas. "We have three plans from 2009 to 2011... the lower target is 30 million subscribers, the middle plan is 50 million subscribers, and the high plan is 85 million subscribers."
EXCLUSIVE: China Mobile aims to attract up to 85 million subscribers to its 3G TD-SCDMA network by the end of 2011 and is already eyeing a speedy move to LTE technology, according to Wang Jianzhou, company chairman and CEO. In an exclusive and wide-ranging interview with Mobile Business Briefing and Mobile World Live, the head of the world's largest operator revealed details on China Mobile's technology path, service and application development, environmental efforts and growth plans (see the full video interview here). On the subject of its high-profile use of China's homegrown TD-SCDMA 3G technology, Chairman Wang said that by the end of this year the network will cover 238 cities, ensuring coverage in 70 percent of the country's metropolitan areas. "We have three plans from 2009 to 2011... the lower target is 30 million subscribers, the middle plan is 50 million subscribers, and the high plan is 85 million subscribers." Looking further ahead, Chairman Wang said the operator will launch a trial TD-LTE system covering the World Expo 2010 event in Shanghai (which runs from May to October next year), using kit from a number of international and domestic vendors. He also reiterated hopes that a unified TDD/FDD standard for LTE can be developed and prompted further debate on whether rival mobile technology WiMAX could be incorporated into LTE. "In Geneva at ITU Telecom 2009 I met with many CEOs of WiMAX operators and we had a very good discussion. Some of the CEOs of WiMAX operators told me they also hope to migrate WiMAX systems into LTE, so that's very good news."
Other areas of note from the interview included an update on its Mobile Market application store and its involvement in the Joint Innovation Lab (JIL), a mobile software alliance comprising mobile operators Vodafone, China Mobile, Japan's SoftBank and Verizon Wireless. Chairman Wang said that in the two months since launch Mobile Market attracted around 20,000 developers (who take a 70 percent share of revenue from application sales) and 200,000 application downloads. On the subject of JIL, China Mobile's head man noted that the alliance is progressing quickly and it would like to accept other, select, operators for participation. Finally, as well as providing further details on its 'open' business model (in which it supports a number of mobile operating systems, including its own platform, OMS), Chairman Wang confirmed the operator remains keen to offer the iPhone. "We have talked about this issue with Apple for about two years," he said. "Unfortunately we did not get an agreement but we will continue to discuss with Apple for the iPhone in China Mobile's market."
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