Foreign visitors to next month's Olympic Games won't be able to use their third-generation mobile phones, whose technology is incompatible with China's network, but China Mobile will be happy to lend them a 3G phone that uses homegrown technology, said Xi Guohua, the vice-minister of industry and informatization.

WCDMA and CDMA 2000 are the dominant 3G technology standards worldwide but China has yet to adopt them, preferring to promote TD-SCDMA, which was developed in China and recently entered commercial trials in major mainland cities.

Xi said at a news conference that China Mobile has come up with a special roaming arrangement that will allow visitors to Beijing to test the Chinese system during the Games, which start August 8.

Source:XFN