Siemens to develop 3G gear in China

Siemens and Chinese phone gear maker Huawei Technologies on Friday announced a joint venture to develop, manufacture and market products that are based on an emerging third-generation (3G) standard that's called Time Division-Synchronous Code Division Multiple Access (TD-SCDMA).

The European giant will hold a 51 percent stake in the company, which was set up with an initial funding of $100 million. The Chinese partner will hold the rest of the shares. The joint venture will initially be focused on China and will start commercial production in the beginning of 2004.

China is the world's largest wireless market with 240 million mobile phone subscribers. The government allowed the use of TD-SCDMA standards and allocated the 155MHz spectrum for it in October of last year. Products that are based on this standard are undergoing field tests in China.

Siemens said this standard is suitable for stand-alone networks with large geographic coverage. It can also complement GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) or W-CDMA networks to meet specific market demands. The company began development of TD-SCDMA products in 1998.