Some well-informed insiders from TD-SCDMA Industry Alliance (TDIA) said besides China Telecom, two other telecom operators will complete the installation of more than 100 base stations around the end of the month, and thus enter the overall test period of TD-SCDMA, China's homegrown 3G standard.
China Telecom is the first one to announce the entrance into the overall test period. Its chairman Wang Xiaochu said the carrier could activate the commercial application in July or August after it gets a 3G operation license, and presently its parent company is preparing for the upcoming TD-SCDMA testing. 100 base stations are expected to come into operation at the end of this month, and the test will be officially activated by then.
Because of complex terrain in Qingdao and the need of seeking sites for new base stations, the network construction work of China Netcom is comparatively slow, although it behaved well in the whole test work, while its stronger rival China Mobile's base station construction work in Xiamen owns the advantage of using the original base stations.