China has made significant progress towards the implementation of a home-made wireless local area network (WLAN) standard with the releases of the first batch of products compatible with the Chinese standard.

"The fact that a standard gets supports of products is already major progress for us," said Liu Chaoyang, spokesman for the Broadband Wireless IP Standard working group (BWIPS), a major player pushing for the Chinese WLAN authentification and privacy infrastructure (WAPI) standard.

Liu said in an interview that China IWNCOMM Co Ltd, which develops the WAPI protocol, will release the first wireless network card in compliance with the Chinese standard today in Beijing.

IWNCOMM is expected to unveil three network cards and other devices including access points.

The release of the first WAPI-compatible network card means Chinese companies have succeeded in developing home-made WLAN hardware, a critical step to promote the Chinese standard.

On Friday, Founder Technology, the second-largest computer maker in China, already said its A760 had become the first WAPI-compatible product through software upgrading and obtained a CCCi certificate, the official credentials needed to sell products, WLAN equipment and devices in China after June 1.

The company said in an e-mail interview that it has one product being tested by the Chinese authorities and it will consider sending more notebook products for testing with the aim of meeting the compulsory CCCi certification.

Lenovo Group, the leading computer maker in China and the Asia-Pacific region, also said some of its notebooks are being tested by the China Quality Certification Centre.

Founder Technology said it has added some wireless modules to its A760 and E3600 products to meet WAPI specifications with assistance from China IWNCOMM Co Ltd.

Dorothy Lai, a senior semiconductor analyst with US-based market researcher Gartner Inc, said the release of WAPI-compatible products will put some pressure on foreign players, which are either against the WAPI standard or have adopted a wait-and-see attitude.

Currently, the 802.11 standards from the WI-FI Alliance are the most popular international specifications and almost all big names in the industry including US giants Intel, Broadcom and Texas Instruments  are WI-FI members.

The alliance had said earlier its members won't ship any WLAN equipment to China after June 1, worried that their confidential techniques may be leaked to the WIPS group. It added the WAPI standard is only favourable to Chinese companies because the encryption method is controlled by the WIPS working group, composed of 32 organizations and domestic firms and a Texas Instruments joint venture.

However, the Chinese side insists the security loopholes in the current popular 802.11b standard has been acknowledged worldwide and China has the right to protect its information security.

Liu Chaoyang also said the WAPI standard only requires some interface data and won't lead to a leaking of intellectual property rights for equipment or chip vendors.

Endorsements from major Chinese computer makers and the release of Chinese hardware may lead to a chain reaction as many of the multinationals won't want to lose the world's second-largest computer market.

Some Taiwanese equipment and semiconductor companies have already expressed their willingness to endorse the WAPI standard and will supply compatible equipment.

Craig Barrett, chief executive officer of Intel -- which said last month that the company would not be able to meet the Chinese standard due to technological difficulties -- said in Taipei on Monday that Intel would try to resolve the dispute with the Chinese side before the June 1 deadline.

He attended a ground-breaking ceremony of its second chip assembly and test plant in China in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, Wednesday and is expected to visit Shenyang in Northeast China to discuss what Intel can do in restructuring old industrial bases in the region, according to Intel China spokesperson Jennifer Liu.

He will also meet key customers and government officials Friday in Beijing and it is believed the WAPI standard will surely be a major topic in talks with Chinese officials.

Intel has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on its Centrino processors since 2002 and notebooks with Centrino processors have become the most popular application for WLAN.

Gartner's Lai believes that although Intel has been in the limelight due to its aggressive push for its Centrino processors, the world's biggest semiconductor company wouldn't suffer much from the implementation of China's WAPI standard, even if it fails to meet the deadline.

"Even if Intel cannot ship Centrino processors, it can still sell other Pentium processors, not even mentioning that Centrino processors only account for a small portion of Intel's total shipments in China," she said.

She predicts a satisfactory compromise for all parties will not be reached before June 1, but there might be concessions made from both sides after the deadline to solve the impasse.

(China Daily April 8, 2004)