Observers believe the Chinese are hard at work developing a homegrown advanced standard, known as TD-SCDMA (time division synchronous cdma), and that 3G licenses will appear once TD-SCDMA is ready.

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But Samsung Electronics, an affiliate of the Samsung chaebol, did have one thing going for it: The firm was totally committed to the up-and-coming phone standard of the time, known as CDMA technology (or code division multiple access), adopted by Sprint.

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