China to put 8.6 billion into 3G market

The world’s largest mobile phone operator plans to invest $8.6 billion to build 60,000 3G base stations.

The plan would increase the number of China Mobile's 3G base stations to more than 80,000 covering 238 cities across China.

The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology granted China Mobile a licence to operate a 3G network based on the domestically developed TD-SCDMA standard.

The government also gave third-generation mobile technology licenses to China Telecom and China Unicorn.

The move means that across the country there’ll be faster data transmission and services such as wide-area wireless calls, web surfing and video.

As of the end of December, China Mobile has built over 20,000 base stations, with total TD-SCDMA service subscribers at over 330,000.

It’s thought the company has as many as 415 million customers.

Beijing said last month their mobile operators were expected to invest about $41 billion in 3G networks over the next two years, with at least $29 billion to be spent in 2009.

China already has 600 million mobile phone users with the Ministry of Industry and Technology expecting 500 million people to sign up for 3G internet and video-enabled services in the next five years.

That estimate could make the Chinese 3G market five times the size of Europe's.

news posted by ellie on 12 January 2009

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China to put 8.6 billion into 3G market

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