Interfax China reports that Xie Fiebao, China's Deputy Director of the Radio regulation Bureau of the Ministry of Information Industry, says WiMAX will not be deployed in the country due to the lack of available spectrum.

"I am regretful to say we cannot deploy [WiMAX] because the government has already allocated the spectrum to a C-band satellite transmission system that is almost completed and will be launched in the first half of next year," Xie said today at a conference in Beijing.

The lesson to be learned from this, Xie said, is that developers need to be better about informing the Chinese government of their future spectrum needs -- and they should do so as much as 10 years ahead of deployment.

"Equipment, from the initial discovery to commercialization to deployment, requires more than 10 years," Xie said. "If they wait until they are at the deployment stage to contact us about spectrum, this creates a very big problem for the national plan."