China Unicom Ltd, the smaller of the nation's two mobile operators, is to launch its GPRS package service with Nokia technology in what the company said.

"We will launch the GPRS package service in January next year," said Song Limei, deputy general manager of Unicom's value-added service.

China Unicom and Nokia China started their first trial run of EGPRS, one of GPRS's package services, in Shanghai yesterday. 3G, the next stage of mobile phone service, has yet to gain government approval in China Enhanced GPRS (EGPRS), also called EDGE, is a digital mobile phone technology that enhances 2G and 2.5G networks. It can reach 2.75G, and can be upgraded to 3G.

EGPRS supports connection speeds three times larger than the traditional GPRS service. It can be used for a variety of applications, such as Internet, video services, and other multimedia that might benefit from increased data capacity. "Subscribers can use the mobile phone to send electronic cards, pay small amounts of money, such as railway and bus fare, and send emails," said Zeng Yiqun, a professor at Nokia's technical centre.

Industry watchers have been waiting for three years for the central government to give the green light for 3G. TD-SCDMA, based on 3G, was originally planned to be launched in June, but has been delayed until the beginning of next year.

"We expect 3G licensing to be permitted by the government in the coming months," said Wang Haojie, spokeswoman of Nokia (China) Investment Co Ltd.

Unicom's GSM subscribers increased 9.61 million in the first 10 months to more than 100 million, thanks largely to the company's strategy of diversified branch marketing and continuous upgrades, said Li Gang, vice-president of China Unicom Ltd.

Source:佚名