With its growing consumer base, China is a ripe target for many telecommunications companies. The large nation faces a number of geographic challenges that make the expansion of wireless services a logical choice—and those consumers are going to want premier services and speed, requiring 3G and the groundwork for 4G. So, China’s telecom industry is turning to Ericsson, Nokia Siemens Networks, and Alcatel-Lucent to implement key components of that infrastructure.

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China Unicom has selected Ericsson and its partners to supply WCDMA core and radio access network systems for 15 Chinese provinces, providing 3G mobile communications to millions of subscribers. Specifically, Ericsson will supply the 2G/3G common core platform, the WCDMA RAN system, network rollout services, tuning, spare parts, and training services over the next few months. Delivers and deployment have already begun.

The first 3G calls have been successfully made in all 14 cities supplied by Ericsson for China Unicom’s initial pre-commercial launch scheduled for May 17, the World Telecommunication and Information Society Day. In addition to the WCDMA rollout in Beijing, Jilin, Jiangsu, Hubei, Heilongjiang, Liaoning, Anhui, Henan, Hainan, Shanxi, Sichuan, Yunnan, Shandong, Guangdong, and Hunan, Ericsson will upgrade China Unicom’s GSM networks to support 2G/3G interoperability functions in Heilongjiang, Jilin, Liaoning, Henan, Anhui, Jiangsu, Hubei, Sichuan, Yunnan, and Hainan.

China Unicom also selected Alcatel-Lucent to deploy 3G WCDMA networks in 14 provinces. Initial network deployments in the cities of Tianjin, Baoding, Wenzhou, Taizhou, Guiyang, and Guilin are expected to be completed in May 2009. Alcatel will provide about 11,000 NodeB basestations, Home Location Register (HLR) database systems, and network maintenance and optimization in Hebei, Fujian, Guangxi, Tianjin, Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Inner Mongolia, Jiangxi, Guizhou, Heilongjiang, Guangdong, Hunan, Shandong, and Xinjiang.

The equipment will be designed to sustain the increase of voice and data traffic and to smoothly evolve toward 3G/HSPA+ and 4G/LTE, according to Alcatel-Lucent. Also, the company says that its multi-standard radio access solutions will enable China Unicom to significantly reduce the total cost of ownership of its networks. Furthermore, Alcatel-Lucent says its converged radio access solution will help China Unicom evolve rapidly from 2G to 3G networks and offer next-generation services.

Meanwhile, China Mobile and China Unicom have signed framework agreements to purchase 2G and 3G mobile equipment and services from Nokia Siemens Networks valued at 7.6 billion RMB, or 880 million Euro. Under the framework agreements, Nokia will roll out WCDMA networks for China Unicom in 11 provinces. Nokia also will provide China Mobile with TD-SCDMA and GSM networks.

According to Nokia, it played a founding role in setting up the intellectual property (IP) rights of China’s homegrown TD-SCDMA technology while developing TD-LTE. The company also has invested in six R&D sites in China, such as Hangzhou High-tech Software Park, which is working on GSM/EDGE, WCDMA/HSPA, LTE and I-HSPA, and WiMAX.