Those Years When I Was Forced to Top the Forbes List

Chapter 239 Should we get into 3G?

Shenzhen, Henggang Building.

Chen Xuebing stood downstairs, looking up at the octagonal building with its old-fashioned eaves. After a moment of contemplation, he instructed Ren Ying:

"Go find the person in charge of the building and ask them if they are willing to sell the whole thing, how much it would cost, and also the land in Laoxi Village, the land next to the factory, if they can sell it, since the factory will be expanded in the future."

Ren Ying raised her hand to shield her eyes from the sunlight and looked around.

"Wouldn't it be a bit abrupt to ask about this building directly? Look, this piece of land is quite large, and the land use rights are quite old. Commercial land only has a 40-year term. Maybe we should be more cautious. Let me see if there are any other properties for sale nearby and inquire about their prices first?"

"Okay, go ahead." Chen Xuebing waved his hand and went upstairs.

So lively.

Once you get to the third floor and above, it's like the offices of the Kuomintang secret police in a TV drama, and people are coming and going, walking very fast, as if they're preparing for some kind of emergency meeting.

"Xiao Jiang, go ask Boss Che how many people we need for the field sales skills training program?"

"Sister Li! Could you send me a copy of last quarter's sales data report? General Manager Lu has a meeting tonight! He needs the proposal by 5 PM!"

"Please wait two minutes, I'm importing the PDF!"

"Yes, yes, we accept the contract terms, but the payment schedule must be as per... Xiao Wang! Has the legal department's stamp been affixed?"

Every open office was filled with the sounds of bustling activity.

As Chen Xuebing traveled along, he lost many of his ideas about moving to a different building.

The last time he came to Shenzhen, he spent a day there and went straight to the SEG Plaza where the engineers worked. It had been a long time since he had visited the old building; it was before the Lunar New Year.

There are so many more people now.

The office atmosphere is pretty good!

The old office building is actually not bad!

Seven months ago, I worked in Shenzhen for more than half a month, starting with a team of about ten people. At its peak, there were only about a hundred people. Now, the number of engineers alone is close to that.

Things are changing rapidly.

In Chongqing, all you can smell is money; it's only here that you feel like you truly own a business.

"Chairman, you've arrived?!"

A person came out of the corridor, saw him, and was stunned.

Chen Xuebing looked up and realized he didn't recognize the person. It seemed to be some kind of deputy department head. Feeling a little embarrassed that he couldn't recall the person's name, he could only nod.

"Ah."

This immediately drew a large crowd, and dozens of eyes suddenly appeared along the long corridor.

Chen Xuebing seemed a little nervous. He smiled and nodded to everyone, walked to the innermost president's office, knocked symbolically twice, and then opened the door.

"Chairman!"

Lu Weibing and Lin Bin, who were chatting inside, stood up.

"You've worked hard." Chen Xuebing shook hands with Lin Bin, who had just returned to China, and then with Lu Weibing: "You've worked hard too."

"Did you bring them both back?"

Chen Xuebing sat down on the sofa next to him and asked.

Lin Bin sighed, "I brought him back! That Mayer was hard to hire. He wasn't satisfied with the $22 annual salary. I had to give him an advance of $10 before he would come with me. He's a very pragmatic person. Yao Jian is not bad. He's wholeheartedly committed to returning to China to contribute to its development. He also asks for a low salary. He's just worried that we can't afford to build the lab. We agreed that if we don't build the lab in six months, he'll leave."

"Build, build, build." Chen Xuebing waved his hand: "We've brought everyone back, are we just going to leave them as decorations? Let's build them right away. President Lu, you choose a location for him first. It's over 30 million, you have it, right? If you have the money, just put it in first, I'll have someone transfer it to you soon."

Lu Weibing hesitated, "Chairman, we only have a little over 30 million in our accounts."

Lin Bin immediately said, "We haven't spent much of the $100 million you transferred; we still have $87 left, which we can transfer to you."

"No, I'm short of US dollars. Transfer the $87 to the designated account to build the lab. 500 million Swiss francs, right? That's 3300 million RMB. I'll have someone transfer it to you right now!"

After Chen Xuebing finished speaking, he immediately took out his phone and called Xiao Haidong. Thinking that Lin Bin was also going to start a software company, he simply arranged for 5000 million yuan to be transferred over.

The group company transferred another 4400 million to Hong Kong and then to the United States, leaving only 7000 million in the account. However, the 2.7 million in profits from the Yufu loan account could be transferred out at any time.

Upon hearing "5000 million," Lu Weibing cautiously asked after Chen Xuebing finished his call, "Chairman, this money... isn't for repairing the factory, is it?"

He's waiting for the factory to be built so he can start producing his popcorn.

“There’s no shortage of money to build the factory, but you’ll have to wait a bit for your popcorn.” Chen Xuebing knew he was thinking about generating revenue, so he gestured to Lin Bin with his chin and said, “You should first pay attention to the latest supply chain information, improve and change the plan as much as possible, and once he has almost finished developing the system application, I’ll find a way to create some momentum for you and try to make you a big hit.”

"Huh? Then we'll have to go next year?" Lu Weibing stared wide-eyed, feeling like the sky was about to fall.

Chen Xuebing snorted and looked at Lin Bin again: "I'll give you plenty of money. Develop the basic applications for the system. Can you get it done in six months?"

Lin Bin had also heard about this matter. After thinking for a moment, he said, "If we don't consider the gains and losses, it's enough, but I can't say about the effect."

"I'll oversee the design for you, just like with UI. You guys do the work, and I'll offer suggestions for improvement. How long will that take?" Chen Xuebing asked again.

“Well,” Lin Bin took a breath, “the most time-consuming part is design. Function optimization is actually simpler for us. If you have a mature idea like the UI, it will take at most three or four months, but you have to be at the computer all the time.”

The fact that the UI system could be developed like this in just seven months is largely thanks to Chen Xuebing. Without his guidance and constant suggestions for improvement, they still might not be able to figure it out.

Thinking of this, he asked somewhat curiously, "Chairman, how can you possibly have so many creative ideas?"

Chen Xuebing immediately thought of UC as an excuse: "I have an investment center in Zhongguancun. Many small internet companies have submitted business plans to us, and there are many good ideas in them. I have a lot of things here, but it's not convenient to show them to you directly. I will describe them, and you can just copy them. You don't need to work on the system browser for now. I submitted a finished product, and you can just install it later."

"Oh!" Lin Bin suddenly understood and laughed, feeling that many of his questions had instantly become clear: "You capitalists are so wicked!"

Chen Xuebing laughed it off.

“You guys need to make sure the original version is good. They say it can be upgraded, but you still have to go to the store to flash it. GPRS network is so expensive and slow, it’s impossible to let users update it online, right?” Lin Bin nodded, slightly sighing: “Actually, I feel that our smartphones were developed too early. If we could achieve the American 3G network, it would be like having a pair of wings. The potential is too great.”

Chen Xuebing chuckled upon hearing this.

"Who said the US already has 3G? It's in trial operation, right? Don't brag about your America. New York's coverage doesn't mean the whole country has it. The White House in Washington doesn't even have 3G yet."

Lin Bin was once again left speechless by Chen Xuebing's socialist punches.

"Then let's talk about China! Okay? Last month, Spreadtrum Communications released a baseband chip that supports TD-SCDMA/GSM/GPRS networks, and the performance is pretty good. They've already prepared contingency plans for poor 3G signal, so they can switch to 2G at any time. With such a good product, why doesn't China use 3G signal?"

Chen Xuebing was taken aback.

Exhibition information?

Hearing this name brings back a flood of memories.

Yes, Spreadtrum is really awesome these days.

They support half of Shanghai's science and technology.

However, TD-SCDMA is not that impressive.

"TD-SCDMA, haha, it's said to be one of the three major 3G standards, but in reality, it's just the International Telecommunication Union giving our country face. With such a large market like ours, no one wanted to offend China when we submitted our proposal, so this protocol standard was approved. The standard we developed in cooperation with Siemens can't even reach 3G speeds; it's only faster than 2G. Its penetration is also poor, and its coverage cost is 30% higher than the EU's WCDMA. Which operator would be willing to spend money to develop it? They're just waiting for WCDMA, or at least using the US's CDMA2000."

"Oh? Is that so?" Lin Bin seemed to realize something.

It's not that Lin Bin has limited access to information, but rather that these days, most negative news about TD-SCDMA is not made public, while the domestic response is overwhelmingly positive.

The reason is simple: TD-SCDMA must be implemented.

When the TD-SCDMA license was being negotiated, none of the three major operators wanted to take it on. However, they had to fill the gap in domestic independent communication security. In the end, it was forcibly assigned to China Mobile, which had the strongest customer loyalty, making China Mobile, the company that made the most money in the 2G era, shoulder the heaviest burden.

In the 3G era, China Unicom, which used WCDMA, claimed a peak network speed of 16M/S, but the actual network speed was only around 4M/S. Meanwhile, China Mobile, which used the TD-SCDMA standard, had a much slower actual network speed of only around 1M/S.

So what if it's slow? That's a user experience issue, none of my business. Anyway, with national information security behind me, nobody dares to mess with my data. At worst, I can just brag a little.

The key point is that our base station costs are higher than others.

However, the 4G licenses were issued to China Mobile ahead of schedule, while China Telecom and China Unicom waited a year before issuing theirs, which made up for the shortfall for China Mobile.

Thinking of this, Chen Xuebing shook his head and smiled: "We can't get around Qualcomm's hurdle with WCDMA. In a few years, when we really start using 3G, we'll all have to pay taxes to Qualcomm."

3G was the era of Qualcomm's tax. They monopolized the patents for WCDMA, charging a 5% patent fee on the sales price of every device, plus a reverse licensing agreement. If you didn't sign it, your network would be cut off. Just thinking about it gives me a headache.

This reverse licensing agreement means that any mobile phone company that uses Qualcomm's 3G baseband chips must license all its patents to Qualcomm. This way, other manufacturers that purchase Qualcomm chips can use these patents for free without being sued.

This is a protective shield for manufacturers lacking patents, but for Singularity, a company that focuses on independent research and development, it is absolutely a bad thing.

"By the way, how long have we been holding our UI and design patents?" Chen Xuebing suddenly asked.

"Don't worry, I applied for it a long time ago." Lu Weibing laughed. "I even applied for patents for the designs of several of our self-produced feature phones. Don't you trust me?"

Chen Xuebing was amused.

These highly educated individuals have a strong awareness of intellectual property protection.

The patents we hold, especially UI designs, must never be leaked.

Apple's iOS has its own underlying system adaptation, which is not something that can be copied by ordinary people.

Their underlying system is the open-source Linux 2.6.

Code protection is one thing, and leaks are just a problem for one or two technical employees. Holding the patents is the ultimate guarantee.

“International patents also need to be applied for,” Chen Xuebing reiterated, still concerned.

“We applied for the domestic patent template in January and have already submitted the international application. We’ve done an international search and found no highly similar patents. Once a year has passed, we can upgrade to an international patent,” Lu Weibing said.

"Then your popcorn sales will have to be postponed until January next year."

"Isn't it a bit much to be so cautious?" Lu Weibing said with a bitter face, "We have international priority!"

Lu Weibing was unaware of the high hopes Chen Xuebing had for this system.

Chen Xuebing also realized that he was getting a little confused because he cared too much.

However, he couldn't help but feel a headache when he thought about Qualcomm's unfair terms and conditions. The patents he painstakingly created could be copied by others at will.

"Let me think about it, let me think about it."

Chen Xuebing covered his face with his hands and rubbed it repeatedly.

Bypass Qualcomm.
07, 08, 09.
He silently plotted his future trajectory.

The issuance of 3G licenses in China took place in January 2009.
The international 4G standard was finalized in 09.
His mind gradually cleared, and a grand plan began to emerge.

Actually, his initial idea to make mobile phones stemmed from this plan.

Initially, he wasn't thinking about making mobile phones; he was thinking about 3G networks and new infrastructure.

Speed ​​up the world.

However, the 3G network faced numerous difficulties; otherwise, the country would not have waited until 09 to gradually build it up.

However, it seems that some opportunities have emerged now.

Do it or not?
Can't do it
Chen Xuebing slowly lowered his hand from his face.

"Find Spreadtrum Communications' phone number online and ask them to send a vice president over."

(End of this chapter)