Third generation (3G) telephony is passe. China has leapfrogged into 4G mobile systems, which provide faster wireless speeds for transmitting data and images on phone networks.
The home grown technology, launched in Shanghai on Sunday is expected to be put into commercial use by 2010, and is said to provide data transmission speeds of up to 100 megabytes per second, against an 10 Mbps under 3G which was not launched in China and is confined mainly to GSM operators in Europe and CDMA operators in Korea and Japan.
It could even be faster than entry-level broadband connections, which transmit voice and data at speeds of 256 Kbps or more, and many times quicker than dial-up net connections which usually have speeds of around 64 Kbps.
With 4G technology allowing faster data transmission sharply improving, consumers could hope to get multi-channel high resolution TV broadcasting right on their cellphones.
While China claims to have developed its own technology, other than what is used elsewhere, technology buffs are surprised at the latest development. The protocol developed by 10 "leading domestic institutions" calling themselves "FuTURE Project", is estimated to have a rollout cost of $19.3 million.
China initiated the B3G (Beyond 3G)/4G research project in 2001 under the label Future Technology for Universal Radio Environment, or FuTURE Project. It has obtained more than 200 patents and some of its core technologies have been adopted by international standards organisations, positioning China as one of the world's front-runners in 4G technologies, a report in the China Daily said.
"It testifies that the technology we've developed is feasible and brings us one step closer to put it into commercial use," a leading expert involved in the programme, You Xiaohu, said.
"The Shanghai system shows that we have entered the final phase of our project," You added.
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