China establishes industrial alliance to back home-grown WAPI standard
More than 20 Chinese companies have set up an industrial alliance in a bid to jointly promote WAPI, the country's home-grown encryption standard for wireless local area network (WLAN) equipment
?BEIJING (AFX) - More than 20 Chinese companies have set up an industrial alliance in a bid to jointly promote WAPI, the country's home-grown encryption standard for wireless local area network (WLAN) equipment, the China Daily reported.
The 22 founding members of the WAPI Industrial Alliance include China Mobile, China Telecom, Founder Group, Lenovo, Hisense, Haier, Huawei Technologies and Datang Mobile.
The WAPI standard is a competing platform to the existing global standard, 802.11i, which is backed mainly by US chipmaker Intel.
The forming of the WAPI Industrial Alliance will help facilitate the development of WAPI compatible network equipment, the paper quoted Zhang Xiaoqiang, vice minister of the National Development and Reform Commission, as saying.
'Domestic standard groups should work with international organizations to turn WAPI into a global standard,' Zhang said.
A working group under the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) was scheduled to meet yesterday in Geneva to decide which, WAPI or 802.11i, should be adopted as a global standard.
The prospect of the approval of WAPI as a global standard is likely to restart a dispute between China and the US over the technology, the paper said.
The Chinese government tried to mandate the WAPI standard as a national standard on June 1, 2004 but this stirred up strong opposition from US technology vendors and the US government.
Former US Secretary of State Colin Powell, Commerce Secretary Don Evans and US Trade Representative Robert Zoellick all urged China to drop the WAPI standard.
The Chinese Government later indefinitely delayed the implementation of WAPI but has recently been urging domestic standard groups to increase efforts to turn WAPI into a global standard.
The 22 founding members of the WAPI Industrial Alliance include China Mobile, China Telecom, Founder Group, Lenovo, Hisense, Haier, Huawei Technologies and Datang Mobile.
The WAPI standard is a competing platform to the existing global standard, 802.11i, which is backed mainly by US chipmaker Intel.
The forming of the WAPI Industrial Alliance will help facilitate the development of WAPI compatible network equipment, the paper quoted Zhang Xiaoqiang, vice minister of the National Development and Reform Commission, as saying.
'Domestic standard groups should work with international organizations to turn WAPI into a global standard,' Zhang said.
A working group under the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) was scheduled to meet yesterday in Geneva to decide which, WAPI or 802.11i, should be adopted as a global standard.
The prospect of the approval of WAPI as a global standard is likely to restart a dispute between China and the US over the technology, the paper said.
The Chinese government tried to mandate the WAPI standard as a national standard on June 1, 2004 but this stirred up strong opposition from US technology vendors and the US government.
Former US Secretary of State Colin Powell, Commerce Secretary Don Evans and US Trade Representative Robert Zoellick all urged China to drop the WAPI standard.
The Chinese Government later indefinitely delayed the implementation of WAPI but has recently been urging domestic standard groups to increase efforts to turn WAPI into a global standard.
