The rollout and licenses of China's home-grown TD-SCDMA standard could potentially be delayed until 2010, according to one industry expert.

Jonathan Dharmapalan, a partner at Ernst & Young and head of the company's global telecommunications centre in Beijing suggested the country would need further time to test the technology before commercial deployment.

The parent of China Mobile, the country's top wireless operator, started commercial trials of TD-SCDMA in eight Chinese cities at the beginning of April, and have issued 20,000 handsets and 5,000 data cards using TD-SCDMA to users.

Dharmapalan suggested that trials of the high-speed technology to last between 12 and 24 months before any licenses to carriers takes place, as GSM (Global System for Mobile communications) did in Europe before, whose commercial trials lasted for 12 to 18 months before it became widely used.

China has promised to offer broadband-grade Web quality via mobile devices for visitors to the Beijing Olympics in August.

China Electronics