Chinese carrier to offer 3G for Beijing Olympics

Third-generation (3G) mobile phone service is ready for use in the upcoming Beijing Olympics, a Xinhua News report said.

The Xinhua report said China Mobile, China's top wireless operator, and South Korean cell phone producer Samsung presented 15,000 3G handsets, plus data cards to the Beijing Organizing Committee for the 29th Olympic Games last week.

With the offer, work staff and volunteers of the Games can enjoy high-speed data transmissions, which allow them to watch televised games, play videos, and surf the internet on cell phones.

The service is based on the Chinese 3G standard, known as TD-SCDMA.

China Mobile has finished construction of the TD-SCDMA network in eight cities, five of which are to host events for the Beijing Olympics in August, including Beijing, Shanghai and Tianjin, said the company.

The International Telecommunication Union has recognized TD-SCDMA as one of the world's three official 3G standards in 2000.
The other two are Europe's W-CDMA and North America's cdma2000.