The American CI Wave, Inc. And Chinese Taiji Computer Co., Ltd. signed yesterday an agreement to introduce a wireless data transmission technology into China and deploy a nationwide city network based on the technology.
 The technology, technically known as "broadband fixed wireless access" (BFWA), is able to deliver high-speed, high-capacity data transmission services in a wireless way, while the traditional transmission way relies on copper lines between long-distance optical fiber cable and customers.

 Since the copper line has far less data transmission capacity compared with optical fiber, it is often referred to as the "last mile problem," a long-standing bottleneck in the communications industry.

 The BFWA technology solves the "last mile problem" and is as speedy and reliable as optical fiber, explained CI Wave CEO Douglas Carey, who authored several key patents for this technology.

 He said a BFWA network in a city could save cost by 95% as it saves the trouble of laying underground copper cable line. He said 2-4 BFWA base stations is able to cover a city as big as Beijing.

 "The technology has been used in a dozen of countries. But our focus now is on China," Carey said. "We believe in the near future, China will have the world's largest broadband fixed wireless access network."

 The technology and equipment provided by CI Wave operates in the 3.5 GHz frequency bank. The network to be deployed in China will provide more than 1 Gigabit of throughput within a city.

 Taiji is responsible for assembling and producing these systems to Chinese industry standards. "The project has been granted a national 3.5GHz spectrum license by the Ministry of Information Industry (MII) and other related permits," said Liu Aimin, CEO of Taiji.

 Taiji is affiliated with the Ministry of Information Industry and has been a primary contractor for the engineering and construction of many significant information networks in China. Its parent company, MMI's North China Computing Research Institute, is designated as a state quality inspection center for the electronic and a state computer testing center for national information security certification.

 CI Wave, a subsidiary of Spike, Inc., is headquartered in New York, with offices in Beijing and Xiamen, China.