Chinese operators seeking billions for 3G projects

January 8, 2007

China Mobile, China Telecom and China Netcom, all plan to return to the mainland stock market to seek capital to build 3G mobile infrastructure, the state paper Xinhau News reported.

The Chinese government is expected to award TD-SCDMA 3G licenses early this year. Chinese mobile operators will need to raise as much as 100billion yuan ($12.8 billion) to build and maintain the new network.

The government has promised that 3G services will be up and running by the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, a target date that analysts say will be hard to meet.

TD-SCDMA is a Chinese developed 3G technology and is considered less mature than Western technologies such as WCDMA, and CDMA 2000.

Industry experts had also considered the possibility that the Chinese government may allow operators to deploy 3G networks using a hybrid of technologies such as using TD-SCDMA for the major cities and employing WCDMA as supplement in smaller and mid-sized cities.