China announced that it will possibly have to push back its launch of the rollout of its home-grown 3G until the fourth quarter of 2007, just days after industry sources claimed it's 4G technology would be ready by October 2007.

Small chipset manufacturing companies are watching in disappointment at the technology being further pushed back.  According to Electronic Engineering Times, they waited in anticipation for TD-SCDMA (Time Division-Synchronous Code Division Multiple Access), but now also have to face the news that China has already licensed the technology to China Mobile for deployment.

Chief executive of RDA Microelectronics, Vincent Tai, announced that they have plans for beginning the building of the network infrastructure which will take place mostly this year.  RDA is the developer of the RF transceiver and power amplifier for TD-SCDMA.

China is estimating spending tens of billions of dollars over the next couple of years for the rollout of the 3G technology.  Because its local standards are not quite up to par, China has delayed spending, leaving small chipmakers to wait in its shadow.

With the development of the 4G technology well underway, China has kept on track with rolling out the 3G for the time being.  They already have created a test market for the 4G, so the question is, why continue with the 3G rollout.  Though 4G is still in its testing phase, the actual commercial deployment of the technology could take around 4 to 5 years.  China has already come so far with its 3G technology that it wants to push it out by early next year. 

China is hoping to have its home-grown wireless technologies up and running in time for the 2008 Summer Olympics.