Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Bush throws down gauntlet on China Wi-Fi standard

From: "marcel_rf1" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 04 Mar 2004 20:33:09 -0000

Bush throws down gauntlet on China Wi-Fi standard

by Jeffrey Silva
March 04, 2004 1:33 PM EST

WASHINGTON—The Bush administration has officially challenged China's 
homegrown Wi-Fi security standard that industry and government 
leaders claim is at odds with international guidelines and 
commercially harmful to U.S. companies that make equipment for 
wireless local area networks. 

A letter to Beijing officials raising concerns about China's Wireless 
Authentication and Privacy Infrastructure, or WAPI, standard and the 
need to resolve the dispute before the June 1 implementation of the 
standard was signed by Commerce Secretary Donald Evans, Secretary of 
State Colin Powell and U.S. Trade Representative, according to 
industry lobbyists who were briefed on the letter's contents. 

The letter, addressed to Vice Premiers Wu Yi and Zeng Peiyan, was 
delivered Tuesday in Beijing to newly appointed Chinese Commerce 
Minister Bo Xilai. 

"We hope the Chinese will carefully consider the matter and take into 
account the significance of such high-level U.S. government 
involvement. Engagement by three top administration officials is 
rare, if not unprecedented, and should send the strongest possible 
signal that the U.S. government is taking this matter very 
seriously," said Rhett Dawson, president of the Information 
Technology Council. 
Key lawmakers of Congress also have protested China's plans to adopt 
the WAPI standard. The high level of U.S. government engagement on 
the issue reflects the huge stakes in the emerging, multibillion-
dollar Wi-Fi market. 

U.S. industry fears that if China's WAPI standard goes into effect 
June 1, it would prevent foreign manufacturers that are not in 
compliance from selling wireless systems in China that are based on 
the widely used international standard, 802.11. In addition, U.S. 
industry officials said requiring foreign manufacturers to produce 
one product for China and another for the rest of the world will 
compromise information technology interoperability and fragment 
global markets. Such a move, according to U.S. industry, could put 
high-tech intellectual property rights at risk. 

ITIC represents such firms as Accenture, Agilent Technologies, Apple, 
Canon U.S.A., Cisco, Corning, Dell, Eastman Kodak, eBay, EMC, Hewlett-
Packard, Honeywell, IBM, Intel, Lexmark, Microsoft, National 
Semiconductor, NCR, Oracle, Panasonic, SAP, Sony Electronics, Sun 
Microsystems, Symbol Technologies, Tektronix, Time Warner, and 
Unisys. 

http://rcrnews.com/cgi-bin/news.pl?newsId=17174

-- 
    "NEXTEL-1 IT'S NOT JUST NEXTEL"
  Note The New address 
Subscribe to Nextel-1: http://www.groups.yahoo.com/subscribe/NEXTEL-1

  "NEXTEL2 FOR iDEN SOFTWARE DEVELOPERS"
Subscribe to Nextel2: http://www.groups.yahoo.com/subscribe/NEXTEL2

  "WIRELESS FORUM HOMELAND SECURITY GROUP"
     The Complete Resource for Wireless Homeland Security.
Subscribe to WFHSG:  http://www.groups.yahoo.com/subscribe/WFHSG

Yahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
     http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NEXTEL-1/

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
     [email-masked]

<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
     http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/