China Telecom and China Unicom announced Thursday they have received government approval to expand their 4G trial services to 40 cities from the current 16 cities.
The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) has given the two companies permission to conduct trials of their hybrid FDD/TDD LTE networks in an additional 24 cities.
The new trial cities include Beijing, Tianjin, Dongguan, Xiamen, and Changchun.
The announcement gives China Telecom and Unicom a much-needed lift against market leader China Mobile in the race of 4G, which has a well-established TD-LTE network covering more than 300 cities across the country.
Due to the government-inflicted 4G regulatory policy, China Mobile, the world’s largest mobile carrier by subscribers, has received a significant head start in its 4G rollout and garnered over 20 million TD-LTE subscribers since its commercial launch in December.
China Mobile added 26.4 million new subscribers in the first seven month of the year, totaling its subscriber base to 784.6 million. In comparison, China Unicom had 296 million mobile customers and China Telecom 180 million.
As of July, China had nearly 513.7 million 3G and 4G subscribers, with China Mobile owning the majority 51% (261.4 million), while Unicom captured 28% (143 million) and China Telecom 21% (109.3 million).
China Telecom is the only operator among the three carriers seeing a decline in subscriber base. The company lost 5.54 million mobile customers in the Jan-July period [see table below], due to cutbacks on handset subsidies and increased market competition driven by China's 4G launches and strengthened marketing effort by China Mobile and Unicom.
With the MIIT’s permission to expand its 4G trial, industry watchers expect China Telecom to aggressively start expanding its 4G presence across the country to reverse the customers it lost to rivalries.
Earlier this week China Telecom chief executive Wang Xiaochu said China Telecom plans to invest about 80 billion ($13 billion) in capex this year, half of which would be spent on rolling out its 4G network.
According to Wang, China Telecom will expand its 4G network coverage in key cities and high data traffic areas with 140,000 base stations and 60,000 indoor radio distribution systems by year-end. It will also increase the number of models of 4G handsets to 100 by year's end, in a bid to lure more customers to sign up its 4G service.
Unicom said earlier this month that it will deploy an additional 100, 000 LTE base stations in the second half in a bid to expand its integrated 3G/4G network coverage across the country.
China Telecom and Unicom received a FDD/LTE trial license from the MIIT in June to test 4G services in 16 cities. Both companies also have a TD-LTE license but plan to deploy hybrid FDD/TDD LTE networks due to the network compatibility issue. The two are expected to receive an official license for a fully commercial FDD LTE rollout in early 2015.
Chinese mobile carriers’ key operating data
As of July 31, 2014 | China Mobile | China Telecom | China Unicom |
Total customers (market share) | 784.6 mln (62%) | 180 mln (14%) | 296 mln (23%) |
Net addition for the month | 3 mln | (-200000) | 888,000 |
Cumulative net addition for the year | 26.4 million | (-5.54 mln) | 14.9 mln |
3G customers | 241 mln | 108.7 mln | 143 mln (3G & 4G) |
4G customers | 20.4mln | 600,000 (by mid-Aug) |
Source: Operators' statistics and Telecom Asia