BEIJING (WiMAX Day). At the Wireless China 2006 conference in Bejing yesterday, Xie Feibo, the Deputy Director of the Ministry of Information Industry (MII) announced that “WiMAX” will not be deployed in China due to the lack of spectrum. The statement was not clear about what spectrum is lacking, however WiSOA believe that the announcement concerned spectrum required for mobile WiMAX in the 2.3–2.5 GHz frequencies.

Xie was quoted by Interfax China as saying “I am regretful to say we cannot deploy [WiMAX] because the government has already allocated the spectrum to a C-band satellite transmission system that is almost completed and will be launched in the first half of next year”.

The Ministry has separately confirmed that they have dedicated spectrum to 3G mobile services, but they do not plan to extend that spectrum to 2.3–2.5 GHz, and it is unlikely that the government would allocate bandwidth
to mobile WiMAX to operate in the same 3G spectrum.

The announcement of MII also may relate to the government’s decision not to support the 802.16e standard for mobile WiMAX, due of its spectrum restrictions. In March 2006, the MII lobbied the International Organization
for Standardization (ISO) to back its proposed WAPI as a possible replacement for 802.16e in China, which the ISO rejected. It is expected that more definitive statements will be made about spectrum availability for mobile WiMAX at the Global WiMAX summit in October.

Fixed WiMAX Flourishes
In February 2003, MII auctioned licenses for 3.5 GHz covering 32 cities. There are now many networks in development that utilise the 3.5 GHz band. Among the dozen companies that were awarded licenses, the largest include China Netcom, China Telecom, ChinaComm and Hua Tong Electricity.

Intel has been working with companies in several regions to establish trials, and Alvarion has worked with China Telecom since 2004. Analysis International, a Beijing research firm, has forecast that fixed WiMAX use in China will have 1 million subscribers by 2007, and that mobile WiMAX, if it is allocated spectrum, will add 10 million subscribers over three years.