China to Open Mobile Market to New PlayersChina's telecoms regulator said on Wednesday it will let more operators into the mobile phone market when it migrates to third generation (3G) technology.The Ministry of Information Industry, widely believed to be considering issuing a third mobile license, sought to bring more competition to China's world-largest mobile phone market, Deputy Director General Han Xia said in a prepared speech. China would definitely bring in "new operators" with the introduction of 3G services to allow the industry to develop, Han said in a speech prepared for delivery to a technology summit in Beijing. "It is well known that our national mobile communication market is monopolised only by two competitors, which is unreasonable and unsuitable to the development of the national mobile communication market," Han said. According to China's Ministry of Information Industry's report on August 14, China's 120.6 million mobile phone subscribers are shared between China Mobile Communications Corp and China Unicom Group and their two Hong Kong-listed units China Mobile (HK) Ltd and China Unicom Ltd. China is expected to begin building 3G networks, which will allow subscribers to send and receive photographs and bulky data files 10 times faster than current generation networks. But China Mobile and China Unicom are still waiting for the government to choose one of three rival standards for the 3G networks. China also has not yet issued 3G licenses and is expected to choose winners in an opaque selection process that may involve numerous other applicants. In Europe, many mobile carriers took on heavy debt last year as they bid tens of billions of dollars for coveted licenses. Source: China Daily |
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