Government will finally grant operators permission to launch services in January. Maybe.
China's ministry for industry and information technology says it will grant operators 3G licenses early next year.The much-delayed move will see China Mobile roll out services based on the locally developed TD-SCDMA network standard, with rivals China Unicom and China Telecom going with the internationally-established WCDMA and CDMA2000, respectively.
The licenses are expected to generate $30 billion for the government, which says the benefits will be felt in the wider Chinese economy.
China's launch of 3G has taken so long due to ongoing indecision over the adoption of the TD-SCDMA and some complex mobile industry restructuring.
As a condition of the licenses, the three operators must agree on a plan to share 3G infrastructure and deployment costs.
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