A bit more than a week ago, Ericsson became the latest Euro vendor to form a relationship with a Chinese player to jointly develop TD-SCDMA offerings.  Known as the "Chinese version of 3G", TD-SCDMA (Time Division Synchronous Code Division Multiple Access) has been originally specified by the Chinese Academy of Telecommunications Technology.  The standard combines older TDMA with the Time-Division Duplexing (TDD) technique of broadcasting over a single chunk of spectrum, rather than the normal two bands.

The three big Chinese manufacturers now all have TD-SCDMA agreements in place with foreign vendors (i.e. Huawei is teaming up with Siemens, ZTE is pursuing Ericsson and Datang struck a deal with Alcatel).  The announcement was consistent with Hakan Eriksson's statement during the Ericsson analyst day the previous week: "TD-SCDMA has not been prioritized but Ericsson will have a presence".  Eriksson added that Ericsson regards this as a Chinese-centric technology, and as such, the company could rely on partnerships.

It is anticipated that the Chinese government will issue three 3G licenses later in 2005, and chances are each will be for a different wireless technology: CDMA EV-DO, WCDMA, and TD-SCDMA.  There could be some delay, as the Chinese government keeps on promoting TD-SCDMA.