China Unicom gets board seat as it joins CDMA Certification Forum

State-owned Chinese telecom mobile operator China Unicom says it is joining the CDMA Certification Forum (CCF) as a member and has accepted a seat on its board of directors.

China Unicom's seat on the CCF board of directors became effective in January 2008. Other members of the board include CDG, Motorola, Nokia, Nortel, Qualcomm, Tata, Telus, US Cellular, Verizon Wireless and Via Telecom Inc.

"We are pleased to be joining the CCF and are looking forward to being actively involved in the CCF's mission of providing the CDMA industry with a device certification process that covers new technologies while minimising the time and cost of bringing products to market," said Liu Jian Min, the manager responsible for the terminal testing in the value-added services department of China Unicom.

The CCF (CDMA Certification Forum) is a global non-profit organisation dedicated to improving test efficiency in order to improve time to market and cost associated with CDMA device certification. By using the CCF certification process, CDMA vendors and operators are able to bring devices to multiple markets more rapidly and affordably than ever before.

Members of the CCF are vendors and operators of the CDMA industry that are committed to promoting the use of the CCF certification process amongst the industry in an effort to improve the availability, interoperability and affordability of CDMA2000 devices.

"The device acceptance process at China Unicom is closely aligned with the CCF model. says Thomas Erickson, president and CEO of the CCF. "We look forward to learning from China Unicom and working with them to further improve CDMA device certification on a global scale."

Chian Unicom owns the world's largest CDMA network, the third largest mobile subscriber base and the second largest CDMA subscriber base. As of October 2007, the total number of mobile subscribers of GSM and CDMA exceed 150 million.

The company has 31 provincial branch companies and 14 subsidiaries and is mainly engaged in nationwide basic telecom services and value-added telecom services, including mobile communications services, international and domestic long-distance services, local telephony services within approved scope, data communications services, Internet services, IP telephony services, etc.