China Mobile Gets Lucky Number for its 3G Trial Service

China Mobile has been granted permission to use phone numbers which start with 188 for its TD-SCDMA trial network. In China, and much of Asia the number eight is deemed to be lucky so granting the 188 prefix to China's own 3G standard could be a subtle boost to build up subscriber interest.

The number was allocated by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology for commercial use following a period where it was used by China Netcom for internal tests.

Until now, China Mobile has been using the 157 prefix for its 3G trial.

So far, there have been complaints of poor coverage and short battery life in the 3G handsets being sold by China Mobile.

China Mobile recently announced that  it plans to donate some 15,000 TD-SCDMA phones to the Beijing Olympics Organizing Committee. Wang Jianzhou, CEO of China Mobile (CHL), said at a press conference that the company now had a trial TD-SCDMA network up and running in eight cities, Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Shenyang, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Xiamen and Qinhuangdao.

Posted to the site on 9th July 2008