Market researchers today are calling for the rapid spread of a mobile technology being spearheaded by the communist nation that’s hosting the Olympics starting this weekend.

 

According to Redwood City, California-based EJL Wireless Research, subscribers in China to Time Division-Synchronous Code Division Multiple Access will reach 12 million by 2012, and overall mobile terminal shipments will hit 11.5 million units in the same year.

 

The firm’s founder and president, Earl Lum, says that, this year, ZTE (News - Alert) has 27 percent of total TD-SCDMA handsets and Guangzhou New Postcom 23 percent.

 

“Non-domestic Chinese handset suppliers have won only 13 percent of total handset awards and zero percent of data card awards,” Lum said. “Chinese equipment giant Huawei (News - Alert) Technologies has only won less than 1 percent of total handset unit volumes so far.”

 

The figures are significant for mobile companies with rights to sell in China, which reportedly has surpassed the United States this year as the world’s largest mobile market.

 

TD-SCDMA is a third-generation mobile telecom standard which experts say marks an attempt by China to save money on paying patent fees to western nations which have developed their own technologies.

 

The standard’s launch, initially set for 2005, is still in the trial phase. China’s government announced in January 2006 that TD-SCDMA would be the nation’s 3G mobile telecom standard, but early results from trials revealed flaws.

 

As a result, TD-SCDMA wasn’t ready in time to deliver what tekkies are calling the most technologically advanced, media-rich Olympics in history – the summer games that start in Beijing with today’s opening ceremonies.

 

As the games approach, more and more technology companies are jumping on the Olympics bandwagon, seizing at an opportunity to gain visibility and promote goods and services at an international event that’s being hosted by the ripest, fastest-growing Internet market on Earth.

 

This week, a Denver-based association that promotes advertising through mobile media today is hailing the Beijing Olympics as the first time that mobile marketing is connecting advertisers with consumers.

 

According to the Mobile Marketing Association, sponsoring companies and others are offering mobile consumers news, incentives, games and Olympic content “in a new and exciting way.”

 

“The Mobile Marketing Association has established the industry’s consumer best practices to ensure the consumer is protected, while still able to receive the information they are looking for,” officials with the advocacy group say.

 

According to new research, mobile advertising is set to take off – a finding that “stunned” TMC President and Group Editor-in-Chief Rich Tehrani.

 

“I was perusing some articles on mobile advertising recently and was absolutely stunned at how big some analysts think this market will be,” Tehrani writes in a recent blog post. “According to this TMCnet article, Strategy Analytics predicts the global market for mobile advertising is slated to reach $14 billion by 2011.”

 

For Tehrani, the use of mobile devices must change dramatically in order to hit those that figure.

 

“One would imagine the path we are on at the moment cannot possibly get us to these numbers,” Tehrani writes. “So as sit here looking at the gargantuan estimates above, I just wonder what would have to change to make these numbers achievable. I have a few ideas and I have assigned some percentages to each… Each point below represents a trend which I expect to have potentially significant market impact in the years to come.”

 

The Olympics in Beijing are expected to dominate more than the Sports section’s headlines in the coming weeks.

 

Recently, officials from the Toronto-based company that’s been chosen to develop a network infrastructure for the 2012 Olympics in London say they’re preparing to do more than deliver the most technologically advanced games in history.

 

It’s true, Nortel officials say, that the London Organizing Committee of the Olympic Games selected their company, in part, for the breadth and depth of the unified communications leader’s capabilities.

 

Joel Hackney (News - Alert), Nortel’s president of enterprise solutions, says Olympic organizers are expecting to send information to more than 4 billion people and that about 15,000 athletes, 17,000 volunteers and 20,000 media members will be on hand for the London games.

 

Yet another of Nortel’s distinguishing features, Hackney said, is that the company focuses on the environment and sustainability.

 

“Fundamentally, it really starts from our carrier history and heritage, where power consumption is an important element,” Hackney told TMC (News - Alert) in an interview, adding that, compared to its competitors, Nortel “can deliver 25 to 40 percent lower energy consumption, which translates into economic benefits and environmental benefits from the perspective of power consumption and a carbon footprint.”