Telecom network maker Ericsson still expects China will award licences for third-generation mobile phone networks in 2008, the company's top executive said on Tuesday.
Ericsson and other network makers have been eagerly awaiting a decision from the fast-growing economic giant. China said that in May it planned to deploy industry standard WCDMA technology, along with a home-grown standard known as TD-SSCDMA.
"Our best guess is that somewhere next year we'll see licences for both technologies," Chief Executive Carl-Henric Svanberg said at an investor conference.
Ericsson and some of its biggest rivals have all jumped on to the TD-SCCDMA (Time Division Synchronous Code Division Multiple Access) bandwagon.