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Featured Article » WiFi Revolution home

August 06, 2010

China Unicom to Sell iPhones with Wi-Fi

By Erin Harrison, Senior Editor

Apple’s partner in China says it will sell iPhones with Wi-Fi starting Monday, “adding to mounting competition in China’s smart phone market,” the Associated Press (News - Alert) reported.




China Unicom Ltd. started selling the iPhone last fall but early models lacked wireless connections due to Chinese regulations, the AP said.

“Unicom has so far offered iPhones without Wi-Fi connectivity to comply with previous government regulations, but has had to compete with ‘gray market’ versions of the iPhone (News - Alert) that had the function and were brought into China from other markets,” said a Wall Street Journal blog.

Industry analysts say that hurt the iPhone’s appeal in China, where black market versions are widely available.

However, in May of this year, Chinese regulators approved a new iPhone with WAP, or WLAN Authentication Privacy Infrastructure. WAPI is a natively created Chinese security protocol for wireless Internet access. However, the device never went on sale, according to an Apple Insider report.

Earlier this year, China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology permitted the sales of Wi-Fi-based mobile phones.

Unicom will sell eight-gigabyte iPhones with third-generation service and Wi-Fi throughout China starting Monday, a company spokesman, Wen Baoqiu, said Friday. Unicom also sells 16- and 32-gigabyte iPhones without Wi-Fi.

The latest iPhone should help Unicom and Apple Inc. compete in an increasingly crowded Chinese smart phone market. China has the most populous mobile phone market, with over 600 million accounts, the AP reported.

In related news, the Wi-Fi Alliance (News - Alert) lately held a meeting in Shanghai, welcoming the Chinese government's decision to allow mobile phones to have Wi-Fi function.

According to Wi-Fi Alliance CEO Edgar Figueroa, China's sales of Wi-Fi-based mobile phones reached 6.6 million last year, indicating the popularity of the products in the country. Handset makers like Motorola (News - Alert) Inc. and Samsung all launched similar products in China.


Erin Harrison is a senior editor with TMCnet, primarily covering telecom expense management, politics and technology and Web 2.0. She serves as senior editor for TMC's print publications, including "Internet Telephony (News - Alert)", "Customer Interaction Solutions", "Unified Communications" and "NGN" magazines. Erin also oversees production of TMCnet's weekly iPhone e-Newsletter. To read more of Erin's articles, please visit her columnist page.

Edited by Erin Harrison


 







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