Saturday, November 22, 2008

Long-awaited 3G licenses set to be issued by Jan.

Licenses for the long-awaited third-generation, or 3G, mobile communications will be issued by January, several months earlier than previously expected, industry officials said yesterday.

It will be the first time for China to launch the 3G services, which have been adopted in the most Western countries and in many parts of Asia. A China International Capital Corp said in a report yesterday that the government will issue 3G permits officially by the end of this year while a China Telecom source, who did not want to be named, said the government will issue the 3G licenses "not later than January." Previously it was expected that China would issue 3G licenses in the second quarter of next year or even later.

After the completion of the telecommunications industry restructuring, the three Chinese telecom carriers will operate three networks based on different 3G technologies. Cell phone users can use 3G to download multi-player games and enjoy services such as video conferences on the high-speed mobile networks.

"In the current macro-economic environment, it's the right time for the government to start 3G as it will generate huge infrastructure investments and new advanced services to stimulate consumption," CICC said.

Several hundred billion yuan will be directly invested in the 3G technology within three to five years, analysts said. More importantly, it will boost revenue in the industry chain, from handset makers, content developers, mobile carriers to wireless service providers.

ZTE Corp, the country's biggest telecom equipment maker, surged to the 10-percent daily cap, compared with a 6.14-percent gain in the Shenzhen benchmark stock index yesterday.

China Mobile, which started trial TD-SCDMA (time division-synchronous code division multiple access) services, will run 3G networks based on the home-grown system. China Unicom, which merged its GSM (global system for mobile communications) business with China Netcom, will operate the WCDMA (wideband-CDMA) network. China Telecom, which acquired China Unicom's CDMA business, will run the CDMA 2000 network, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has said.

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