By Hu Hongjun
Communication changes people's life
In the area of "Picture Show of Achievements by Communication Industry in 60 years since the Foundation of the P.R.C." held in the International Information Communication Exhibition of China named as "60-year Communication Changes our Life," the vivid pictures demonstrated the history and changes of China's communication industry. During 60 years, China's communication industry has experienced great changes that attracted the world's attention. It powerfully forwarded economic construction and social development, laying solid foundation for information construction in China.
According to the statistics from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, up to the end of this July, the number of telephone users in China has gone up to 1.03 billion. In addition, since 1987 when the first scale commercial cellular mobile communication system was formally put into use in Guangzhou, the number of mobile users in China has broken 0.7 billion up to the end of this July.
In the 60 years, rural communication construction was greatly forwarded in China. With the large-scale implementation of "Village Connected Project" and the rural information construction, over 70,000 administrative villages and 20,000 natural villages have installed telephones up to now. The administrative villages with telephone installed nationwide have taken 99.21 percent, and the villages and towns with the ability to access to internet have reached 97 percent.
In the 60 years, China's information communication network fulfilled great leaps one after another, from telegram to telephone network, from analog to digital network, from national to international network and from voice to information network, and now it has become a large-capacity, high-level, technologically advanced and functionally diversified information communication network covering the whole China and linking the whole world, basically forming the framework of national information express. Up to the end of 2008, Chinese netizen has lifted up to 298 million persons, among which broad-band users accounted for 270 billion persons. At the end of 2008, the number of the websites in China totaled at 2.878 million.
3G initiates a brand new era
On this exhibition, the most attractive word is 3G (the third generation mobile communication technology). On the exhibition areas of the three major operators--China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom, several latest 3G terminals and the newly launched 3G business impressed you that the new 3G communication era was gradually approaching.
"This exhibition blew the horn of the 3G market competition by domestic operators." Guo Haitao, Vice General Manager who has been dedicating to the communication market research in CCW Research told the reporter, " After the earlier network construction and more than half a year of preparation work, now it is the time for operators to 'pull out their swords' and to exhibit their 'booties'."
Early on this January, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued 3G licenses to China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom, initiating the new 3G communication era in China. Currently, the 3G network of China Telcom has covered 342 cities, over 2,000 counties and cities and 6,000 developed townships and towns; China Mobile will connect through 3G network in the third phase project in over 200 cities; China Unicom will officially launch 3G business in 285 cities nationwide at the end of September.
To talk about 3G, the international standard TD -SCDMA with China's independent intellectual property right cannot be ignored. "The independent innovative technology - TD's emerging and then formally commercial use enabled the leap-over development of China's communication industry, and created a complete industrial chain." Chen Jinqiao, Vice General Engineer from the Telecommunication Research Institute of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology told the reporter.
"At present, led by China Mobile, TD adopted relatively steady strategy and forwarded step by step. For more than one year, their focus was mainly put on network optimization." Yang Hua, Secretary General of TD-SCDMA Industrial Union revealed that the focuses for the development in the next stage are: firstly, continue to strengthen the network; secondly, provide diversified terminal products; and thirdly, solve problems in diverse value-added businesses.
For terminal, China Mobile invested RMB 650 million yuan on new product development in collaboration with mobile phone manufacturers, and accelerated the development of TD terminals. Based on the increased support to terminal, the three major operators played their trump cards one after another: China Unicom introduced IPhone; China Telecom contacted the Black Berry; and China Mobile formally launched OPhone platform. It is noted that the number of manufacturers participated in OPhone has exceeded 20.
New technologies and new applications emerges endlessly
Every communication exhibition always created a stage for new technologies; this exhibition is not an exception. During the exhibition, new technologies and new applications, such as mobile TV, visible communication, high-speed internet and mobile business, that take advantage of 3G network emerged endlessly, attracting numerous audiences' attention.
In the theme of "Innovation pushes development and communication changes the world" , Ericsson, the telecommunication technology and service provider, will set out four exhibition areas of mobile broad band, network transformation, multi-media experience center and professional telecommunication service to completely showcase their advanced technology and solutions through interactive game and application demonstration.
Ma Zhihong, President of Great China of Ericsson told the reporter, "As the network integration and transformation are continuously advanced and new online terminal is increasingly popularized, the ICT technology represented by mobile communication and broad-band network will enter into a new development stage. It is estimated that there will be 50 billion online terminals in 2020, and large amount of M2M (Machine to Machine) application will emerge, consequently the Internet of Things (IOT) will come into reality."
Not only Ericsson, but also Datang Telecom exhibited the worldwide first TD electronic reading terminal, which is the debut of "3G E-book" that has been given extensive concerns recently. It is reported that such form of 3G reading terminal will be formally on sales through the channel of China Mobile from the middle of September.
According to the estimation of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, domestic operators will invest RMB 450 billion yuan into 3G development in the next three years, and each of which will develop 50 million to 80 million subscribers to drive up trillions of economic aggregate. "The future three-year is a good opportunity for 3G to develop in China." experts said, "It will help domestic communication industry deal with international financial crisis and promote fast and favorable economic development."
