The Chinese mainland's home-grown third-generation (3G) mobile technology, TD-SCDMA, proves lagging behind the two key foreign technologies in many performance categories and is far from ready for commercial use.

The results from the five-month, state-run trials were revealed for the first time on Monday at the ongoing 3G in China Global Summit 2004 in Beijing.

Key problems include lack of workable handsets, dubious stability and poor reliability of TD-SCDMA's core network.

The other two 3G systems - WCDMA, based on Europe's GSM technology, and CDMA2000, a next generation mobile platform based on the CDMA standard in use in the United States - yield satisfactory results, confirming that both are fit for commercial operation.

The failure may prompt the government to further delay the issue of 3G licenses if it decides to wait until the home-grown system is ready.

It may also affect how the Ministry of Information Industry determines standards and how many licenses are to be granted.