China a go, again

The theatrics surrounding China Unicom's adoption of CDMA technology may finally be over.

Unicom, which has appeared to have an on-again off-again love affair with the technology, is expected to announce contracts for CDMA equipment with a number of foreign vendors.

Unicom has yet to make a formal announcement of its decision, but Lucent, Motorola, Nortel Networks, Ericsson and Shanghai Bell (a joint venture involving Alcatel) are expected to win contracts. South Korean vendor Samsung Electronics has already announced its contract with Unicom.

"We have a sizeable chunk of the business," said a Motorola spokesman. Industry insiders estimate Motorola's share to be about 26%. A Lucent spokesman could not confirm an award.

After months of heavy negotiations and political maneuverings that included Qualcomm signing a CDMA-royalty deal with China's wireless vendors, the Chinese government gave Unicom the go ahead in early 2000 to use the technology. What followed was a series of delays. Yet, when Unicom gained control of a state-owned CDMA system started by the military, Unicom decided to expand the system.