Cai Yingbo

Shenzhen residents have adopted a wait-and-see attitude toward the indigenous third-generation mobile phone network (3G) service since commercial trials were launched in eight mainland cities April 1.

"More than 200 people come to experience the 3G services every day, but only about 10 percent of them eventually buy the phones," said a staff member surnamed Luo at a TD-SCDMA exhibition hall in Hongxiang Garden in Luohu District.

China Mobile Shenzhen has refused to disclose the total sales volume over the past week.

Xi Hongbin, public relations manager with the finance cooperation division of China Development Bank, Shenzhen Branch, hesitated to buy a 3G phone after he experienced the service in the exhibition hall.

"I still want to keep my original 139 number if I buy a 3G phone, but only one brand of mobile phone, which costs 3,800 yuan (US$535), has dual SIM card, dual standby," said Xi.

The other problem was that his friends were not 3G phone users and it would be useless to get one at this stage.

Many customers were satisfied with the faster 3TG Web browsing although some complained the technology was still immature and the TD-SCDMA network was not stable, said Luo, who summarized feedback from 3G phone users over the past week.

A woman surnamed Cui bought an LG KD876, one of the most popular 3G phones. She complained that the phone battery went flat within an hour and she couldn't receive in-coming calls from the personal handy-phone system, also known as Xiaolingtong.

China Mobile said the TD-SCDMA signal didn't cover areas outside the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone, and video calls, apart from other 3G services, were not available in these areas and the fees would be charged at the 2G standard.

Many customers complained that 3G phones couldn't switch from TD-SCDMA to 2G services automatically and they had to change the network service when the 3G signal failed.

TD-SCDMA (Time Division Synchronous Code Division Multiple Access), China's homegrown standard for 3G, is a high-speed wireless connection for 3G mobile phone users. It works in much the same way as competing 3G technologies such as WCDMA (wideband CDMA) and CDMA 2000, which are used in other parts of the world such as Japan, Europe and North America.