Yankee Group: China Unicom reaches point of no return on CDMA

The upcoming China Unicom cdmaOne network will lay the groundwork for a smooth migration to a cdma2000 1x RTT network in 2003, and likely cdma2000 1x EV in 2004, according to a new Yankee Group report, "China Unicom's CDMA Project: The Big Pie Finally Falls".

The overall capital expenditures for cdmaOne and cdma2000 networks in China will reach $15 billion over the next five years, and Unicom is expected to generate cumulative revenues of $24 billion from its CDMA networks from 2001 to 2005.

According to Larry Wan, an analyst for the Yankee Group's Wireless/ Mobile Asia-Pacific research and consulting practice, "As the only major operator in the world running both large-scale GSM and CDMA networks, Unicom has not convinced us how it will tackle the tough task of expanding the two incompatible networks simultaneously. Meanwhile, we are concerned about Unicom's ability to raise enough capital in today's bear market to finance its massive investment." Nonetheless, Wan is still optimistic that the Chinese operator, with a 30-million subscriber base and strong government support, will finally come up with a solution to appease the market worries. - (World IT Report)