mainland's telecoms giants prepare for 3g
After recent indications by Ministry of Information Industry (MII) officials that the long-awaited 3G policy is being hammered out by Beijing this year, speculation by mainland media on the readiness of domestic telecommunications operators to roll out the advanced service has apparently reached fever pitch.
Several reports claimed China Telecom was secretly expanding its pilot 3G networks in Shanghai with help from TD-SCDMA equipment supplier ZTE.
That move was supposed to help expedite its service trials and development work.
Another operator reportedly pursuing secret trials is China Unicom.
The mainland's second-largest mobile network operator was supposed to have built a 3G network in the provinces based on CDMA2000 EV-DO technology.
But these reports apparently missed out one glaring fact: trial networks, by their definition, must be pulled down by the relevant operator after trials are completed.
