China Mobile announced that it has over 50,000 TD-SCDMA customers.  But it counts weird.  A customer usually means a paying customer.  In this case 15,000 of the customers are Olympic volunteers with a free phone an additional 20,000 customers also have free phones as part of China Mobile and Samsung's promotional push.

For new customers after 1 June 2008, it will be offering a total of €9.2 million in free service.  Compare that to the last estimated numbers of the Iphone sold in China 600,000 not counting the knock-off HiPhone.  With the 3G iPhone now released one has to wonder how long China Mobile will extend money to support two different and incompatible 3G standards for it's customers?  One also has to wonder if the Iphone subscribers feel a bit ripped-off for their subscription fees supporting the promotions for the different 3G standard users? 

While telecoms have got used to upgrading standards and often supporting more than one standard during the converstion time, usually long enough for older handsets to be upgraded this strikes us as a not so smart business move.

However, for those visiting China during the Olympics who have WCDMA-based data cards will find service slow as they will drop to the 2.5G levels as China seems to be implementing their 'homegrown' 3G technology and not the 3G standard as it is being implemented in the rest of the mobile using world.

Unfortunately China's homegrown 3G has reports of experiencing poor service quality, signals that drop, and limited service coverage.  So, stay in Beijing, stay near the Olympic venue if you get a local 3G sim card, which will, most likely, be incompatible with your handset. X

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