BEIJING - CHINA Mobile, the country's top telecom operator, has announced a plan to invest 58.8 billion yuan (S$12.8 billion) this year to develop third-generation network.
The company, which was recently given a licence for the Chinese-developed TD-SCDMA standard for 3G, will use the money to build around 60,000 base stations covering 238 cities, it said at the weekend.
The company currently operates more than 20,000 base stations - which connect calls between mobile phones - across the country, the statement said.
Third-generation telecoms, which look set to take off in China after the government issued long-anticipated licences last week, enables faster data transmission and services such as wide-area wireless calls, web surfing and video.
Apart from China Mobile, China Unicom received a licence for Europe's WCDMA standard, while China Telecom will handle North America's CDMA 2000.
Beijing said last month the carriers were expected to invest about US$41 billion (S$61 billion) in 3G networks over the next two years, with at least US$29 billion to be spent in 2009.
It said spending on the launch of 3G services was an important part of efforts to battle the effects of the global economic slowdown.
China is the world's biggest mobile phone market, with more than 634 million subscribers by the end of November. -- AFP
