Hasta La Gadget!

Both Microsoft and China Unicom have come together so that the latter can help give the former a leg up when it comes to Microsoft’s Windows Phone operating system. Stephen Elop, chief executive officer of Nokia, mentioned earlier this week that China is now the largest market in the world where Windows Phone devices are concerned, and it is also the largest single-country market for Nokia’s Lumia smartphone series. Occupying a 3% market share in the world’s most populous country, opportunities for growth are definitely there, ready and waiting in the wings.

Officials from both China Unicom and Microsoft have mentioned that the new Windows alliance will lead to the development of additional innovative devices, where this will in turn result in a snowballing effect to attract more and more partners. Do you think the Windows Phone platform will be able to ride things out to the top? We do know that on the international front, it is RIM’s BlackBerry and Microsoft’s Windows Phone 8 duking it out for third spot.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: LG Says Nexus 4 Demand Is Just Too Huge, ZTE Nubia Z5 Leaked With Full Frontal Shots,

We learned last month that the iPhone 5 was heading to China. The new Apple smart phone is coming to China Unicom. The iPhone 5 is set to launch on the Chinese carrier on December 14. China Unicom is the second largest wireless operator in China.

The carrier begin taking reservations for the iPhone 5 Monday. Despite the high cost of the device in China, the company racked up 100,000 online pre-orders for the device on the first day it was offered. However, 100,000 reservations for the device doesn’t mean that many people actually turn up on December 14 to pay.

No money was required to pre-order the device online with only an ID card and other personal information required to reserve the device. The iPhone is also being pre-ordered by another Chinese carrier called China Telecom. That carrier reportedly received 5000 pre-orders for the iPhone 5 on Sunday before the official release date on the network have been announced.

Apple is also rolling the iPhone 5 out to 50 additional countries this month other than China. Previous iPhone launches in China have had issues attributed to an elaborate network of scalpers and resellers. The reserve system implemented by carriers aims to alleviate some of these problems.

[via The Next Web]

China Unicom racks up 100k iPhone 5 reservations on day one is written by Shane McGlaun & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

The iPhone 5 received its final regulatory approval, the crucial “network access license” from China yesterday, but the original report from the Wall Street Journal only found approval for the China Telecom version of the device. Now, however, Chinese news sources report that the iPhone 5 variant which works with China Unicom has also received network access approval.

That means that the iPhone 5 will likely hit both networks by sometime in mid-December, if Apple sticks to the timeline of putting its device up for sale around 2 to 3 weeks after receiving this final necessary approval from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. China Unicom uses a WCDMA network, and China Telecom uses a CDMA-based network, and now versions for both (codename A1429 and A1442, respectively).

A simultaneous granting of licenses should indicate neither provider will get a head start on the other, despite comments earlier in the month from the chairmen of both companies that seemed to indicate different levels of confidence in being able to launch the iPhone 5 before year’s end. It should also mean Apple will be launching the iPhone 5 to as broad an audience as possible when it debuts the smartphone in December, though subscribers on China’s largest network, China Mobile, will still have to get the device unlocked and off-contract to be able to join in on the fun.

Still, the launch should be impressive. Apple had to actually halt the iPhone 4S launch in China as crowds became unruly when it made it available to China Unicom customers in January. Then, when the 4S went on sale at China Telecom in March, Apple racked up an impressive 200,000 pre-orders for the device. That was China Telecom’s first introduction of the iPhone, making it the largest carrier in the world by subscribers to offer the CDMA version of the iPhone.

Wireless device certifications can sometimes give away a little more of a company’s game plan than intended. Case in point: a China Compulsory Certification for the iPhone 5. The expected A1429 variant has been given initial clearance on its way to China Unicom, but there’s also a previously unseen, CDMA2000-based A1442 iPhone with a similar rubber stamp. With the iPhone 4S already on the market for a CDMA-only China Telecom, it doesn’t take much to suggest that the A1442 represents Apple’s taller, faster smartphone already prepared for the same carrier. Neither edition of the iPhone 5 is imminent without the equally important network and radio clearances. Getting the ball rolling on multiple variants so soon after the initial launch, however, raises the chance that we’ll see the iPhone 5 on more than one Chinese provider faster than the iPhone 4S took to arrive the last time around.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile

iPhone 5 swings through first round of Chinese approvals, may already have China Telecom onboard originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 26 Sep 2012 16:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Relations between mainland China and Taiwan haven’t always been what you’d call warm, even with many companies having a footprint in both regions. Consider the first bursts of network traffic from a newly active connection as olive branches: a pair of undersea fiber optic cables running between southern China’s Xiamen and the Taiwan-claimed Kinmen island chain represent the first truly direct data link between the two sides. Built by China Mobile, China Telecom, China Unicom and Taiwan’s Chunghwa Telecom, the link both has its share of diplomatic symbolism as well as the very practical advantage of a faster, more reliable route — there’s no globetrotting required to get data and voice to their destinations, and there’s fewer chances of blackouts if a boat inadvertently slices a cable. We wouldn’t go so far as to call it a Happily Ever After for either faction after decades of tension, but it does at least provide a greater semblance of normalcy to their communication.

[Image credit: Aine Hickey, Wikitravel]

Filed under: Networking, Internet

Mainland China, Taiwan send first data over direct fiber optic link, take steps towards peace and harmony originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 22 Aug 2012 09:41:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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