China approves long-awaited 3G licences
BEIJING, Dec 31 (Reuters) - China's state council, or cabinet, said on Wednesday it had approved the issuance of long-awaited licences for next generation (3G) mobile networks, opening the door to $41 billion in spending for equipment.
Licences will be issued for TD-SCDMA, a standard backed by Beijing, and two globally accepted standards, WCDMA and CDMA 2000, the cabinet said on the central government website www.gov.cn.
The website did not specify which companies were awarded specific licences. However, the government had said earlier this month that China Mobile (0941.HK) would get a licence for TD-SCDMA, China Unicom (0762.HK) one for a WCDMA network and China Telecom (0728.HK) one for CDMA 2000 technology.
China's state-run firms have already spent billions of dollars to develop TD-SCDMA to promote domestic industries and avoid expensive royalties demanded by the foreign firms that control the patents behind the global standards, WCDMA and CDMA 2000. ($=6.83 yuan) (Reporting by Kirby Chien; Editing by Kim Coghill)
