China claims first 4G mobile system, but is it?

Stuart Corner
Tuesday, 30 January 2007 01:06

Business IT - Technology

China claims to have launched the world's first 4G mobile communications system, even though it has yet to introduce 3G services. However Samsung of Korea made similar claims late in 2006.

The official Peoples' Daily newspaper reported that the trial had been launched in Shanghai's Changning District at a cost of 150 million Yuan ($US19.2m) following a field trial conducted in October. The system was reported to provide data throughput of 100Mbps.

The report quoted You Xiaohu, "a leading expert involved in the program," saying: "It testifies that the technology we've developed is feasible and brings us one step closer to put it into commercial use."

However, in September 2006 Samsung Electronics staged what it claimed was the world's first demonstration of 4G mobile technology, at the annual Samsung 4G Forum in Jeju Island. Data rates of 100Mbps to a vehicle moving at up to 60kms/hr, with cell-to-cell handover, and rates up to 1Gbps inside the exhibition area were achieved, Samsung claimed.

Samsung said little about the technology or where it sat in relation to other so-called 4G wireless technologies, saying only that it would used 8X8 MIMO (multi-input multi-output) technology (ie transmitter and receiver will each have eight antennas to make use of multipath transmissions.