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In May 2008, one of the largest industrial re-organisations in the telecoms industry saw China’s telecommunications operators reduced from six to three – China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom, spanning mobile, fixed and broadband services, respectively. The re-organisation was the fourth since China opened its telecoms industry to domestic competition.
A few months later, in September, the State Council issued revised regulations on foreign-invested telecommunications enterprises (its Provisions for the Administration of Foreign-invested Telecommunications Enterprises (Revised)/国务院外商投资电信企业管理规定 (修订)). The regulations update legislation brought into force in 2002 and have been introduced to provide incentives for foreign investment.
At the start of 2009, long-awaited 3G licences were awarded to China Mobile (home-grown, TD-SCDMA standard), China Unicom (WCDMA standard) and China Telecom (CDMA2000 standard) paving the way for investments of around Rmb200 billion (US$29.3 billion) from the three operators.
This chain of developments ended...
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