Media free to roam in China during 2008 Games
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Foreign media will be free to travel   around China and enjoy uncensored access to the Internet during   the 2008 Beijing Olympics, organizers said on Wednesday.
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Visitors to China will no longer have to fill in health declaration forms from next month as a way of simplifying entry procedures ahead of next year's Beijing Olympics, state media said on Thursday.
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China Mobile Communications, currently the largest operator of mobile communication services in China, will establish a 3G (third-generation) experimental network in Beijing at the beginning of next year, according to the China-based Xinhua Online.
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Foreign journalists are facing official interference while reporting in China, despite Olympic-related rules aimed at allowing greater press freedoms, an international media group said Tuesday.
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HONG KONG -- China has decided to restrict the broadcasting of Internet videos _ including those posted on video-sharing Web sites _ to sites run by state-controlled companies and require providers to report questionable content to the government.
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Chinese sport fans have embraced an online lottery for tickets to theÂ 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing.
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Beijing -- Talk in China has shifted from holding a &#39;green&#39; or &#39;people&#39;s&#39; Olympics to a &#39;frugal Games&#39; as Beijing tightens its purse strings while undertaking massive preparations to play host to the 2008 event.
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WPP releases 2006 results and says its presence in China will help it take advantage of the 2008 Olympics.
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Those elusive connections that in China  can ensure personal or business gain are just a click away  thanks to a new Web site, state media said on Thursday.
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(InfoWorld) - The 2008 Summer Olympics is going to be China's coming out party, a chance for the country to show its modern face to the world. To that end, the Chinese government is pouring billions of dollars into new roads, modern stadiums, and an expanded subway network to prepare for the games. With less than 400 days until the opening ceremony on Aug. 8, 2008, workers and officials appear on track to have everything ready. Everything, that is, except 3G, or third-generation mobile technology. China remains one of the few Asian countriesÂ without 3G service, despite years of breakneck economic development and a love of high technology. Telecom analysts and industry insiders have long sought to divine the plans of China's Ministry of Information Industry (MII), which regulates the telecommunications sector, to give operators licenses for the technology. Year after year,Â the forecastÂ was always for licenses to be issued later this year or early next year. Eventually, most observers gave up guessing, tired of the game, as foreign equipment makers waited for a presumed surge in orders for 3G gear that never came. The main obstacle was TD-SCDMAÂ (Time Division Synchronous Code Division Multiple Access), a 3G standard that was largely developed in China and remains unproven. The Chinese government spent heavily on TD-SCDMA development, and officials won't give the go-ahead for 3G licenses until the technology is ready for deployment. When that might happen is anybody's guess. But TD-SCDMA trials are underway in several Chinese cities andÂ Nokia has handsets ready to shipÂ early next year, suggesting the technology may be close to commercial use. When Beijing won the bid to host the games, officials promised a "High-Tech Olympics" to highlight new technologies and showcase China's economic development. 3G was going to be one of the technologies on display. "We shall energetically develop the mobile communication technology of the third generation," the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad (BOCOG) promised in documents compiled for the city's bid. After Beijing won the bid, China Mobile CommunicationsÂ (China Mobile), the country's largest mobile operator, described how it planned to use 3G. The company said visitors would be able to buy tickets for Olympic events and watch live video coverage on their 3G phones, as well as access information about restaurants, shopping and sightseeing. Athletes and staff would also use 3G to access information related to the games, it said. China's commitment to the use of 3G during the Olympics was reinforced last December by Wang Xudong, China's minister of information industry, who promised operators would have 3G licenses in time to build their networks for the Olympic games. BOCOG officials declined to answer questions concerning the use of 3G during the games, but analysts expect the government to deliver on its 3G commitment. "The Chinese government will not break its promise," said Kevin Li, an analyst at In-Stat China, in Beijing. But regulators have another hurdle to overcome before 3G licenses can be issued China's telecommunications industry is split along geographic and technological lines, with two fixed-line operators and two mobile operators, as well as several smaller players. Since this structure was created in 1999, the industry has changed, complicating the 3G licensing process. China had 110 million fixed-line phone subscribers and 33 million mobile subscribers at the end of 1999, according to government statistics. Fast forward to May 2007 and the numbers tell a very different story: China had 372 million fixed-line subscribers and 496 million mobile subscribers. The disparity in subscriber growth is reflected in the financial performance of China's fixed-line and mobile operators, especially China Mobile. China Mobile saw its revenue rise 24.9 percent during 2006, while China United Communications Corp. (China Unicom), the country's other mobile operator, saw revenue increase 11.3 percent. By comparison, fixed-line operators China Telecommunications (China Telecom) and China Network Communications GroupÂ (China Netcom) saw their revenue rise 6.3 percent and 4 percent, respectively. "China Mobile's growth has made it the envy of other operators in China," wrote Matt Walker, a senior analyst at Ovum, in a recent research note. To put operators on a more equal footing, China is widely expected to split up China Unicom, which operates both a GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) and CDMA networks. In this scenario, China Unicom's cellular operations would be divided between China Telecom and China Netcom, which do not currently offer cellular services, although both companies are involved in TD-SCDMA testing. But how the industry gets restructured is not up to MII alone. The State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC), which oversees China's state-owned companies, plays a central role in the restructuring process, and will help determine which 3G technologies operators are allowed to use with their licenses. The National Development and Reform Commission and Ministry of Science and Technology also have a say in these decisions. Once the questions of TD-SCDMA's readiness and the industry restructuring are resolved, MII can issue 3G licenses . That's likely to happen during the first half of 2008, with licenses for TD-SCDMA, W-CDMA (Wideband CDMA), and CDMA2000 1X EV-DO (Evolution Data Optimized) networks granted simultaneously, In-Stat's Li said. But not all of these networks will be in service for the games. "At least one type of 3G service will be commercially available during the 2008 Olympics, but we are not sure which technology will be available," Li said. "That's up to the operators." The most likely bet is TD-SCDMA. Operators have already signed contracts to build TD-SCDMA networks in Beijing and other cities, including Qingdao, where the Olympic sailing events will be held. Similar deals have not yet been struck for W-CDMA and CDMA2000 1X EV-DO, giving the homegrown 3G technology a head start for the games. Â
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China relaxes rules for foreign journalists ahead of the 2008 Beijing Olympics, allowing them more reporting freedom.
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China&#39;s Internet police took between five and eight hours to track down the new location of Reporters Without Borders&#39; Chinese language website and block it, the media freedom group said Wednesday.
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German industrial conglomerate Siemens  AG may withdraw from the Internet TV market in China, a local  newspaper reported on Friday. Siemens has dismissed its team in  charge of Internet Protocol Television in China, the Shanghai  Securities News said, citing industry sources saying that it  was a "failure" for Siemens after the company had lost a bid to  cooperate in the launch of IPTV services in Shanghai.
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(InfoWorld) - Chinese sport fans have embraced an online lottery for tickets to theÂ 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. Nearly 90 percent of ticket applications were submitted through the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad's (BOCOG's) ticketing Web site, according to the Chinese Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC), an organization that oversees the .cn top-level domain and tracks Internet usage in the country. The remaining applications -- 10.6 percent of the total -- were made using paper forms submitted through Bank of China branches across the country. "The Internet has become the most important channel for Olympic ticket sales," CNNIC said in a recent report (in Chinese). The first Olympic tickets to go on sale in China are being sold through a lottery system. The first phase of the lottery lasted from April 15 and June 30. During that period, BOCOG received 700,000 applications for a total of 4.9 million tickets to Olympic events, CNNIC said. It did not say how many tickets are being offered during the lottery. During the second phase of the lottery process, which lasts from July until September, BOCOG will allocate tickets and charge customers, although pricing for individual tickets has not yet been made public. Payment can only be made using Visa credit and debit cards or through a Bank of China savings account. The most popular event during the lottery was the opening ceremony, planned for August 8, 2008. Nearly 51 percent of ticket applications received during the lottery are for the opening ceremony, CNNIC said. The next most popular events are basketball (39 percent) and soccer (35 percent). The least popular event is softball, which accounted for 0.9 percent of ticket applications. Chinese sport fans who missed the lottery can still buy tickets for the games. The remaining tickets will go on sale in October through BOCOG's Web site, Bank of China, and the Olympic Ticketing Call Center. Tickets will also be sold at the venue for each event starting in April 2008. Â
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International rights groups denounced   new Chinese curbs on the dissemination of foreign news as a   step backward ahead of the 2008 Beijing Olympics, when   thousands of journalists will descend on the country's capital.
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By Joseph Kahn New York Times News Service  BEIJING -- China imposed broad new restrictions Sunday on the distribution of foreign news in the country, beefing up state regulations on the news media.
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ELEANOR HALL: To China now, and authorities in Beijing have released an Australian man arrested for unfurling a banner that read &quot;No Olympics In China Until Tibet Is Free&quot;.