In the wake of the approval by the State Council for 3G licenses on December 31, China's MIIT (Ministry of Industry and Information technology) announced on January 7 that it has issued long-delayed 3G mobile communications licenses to three leading Chinese telecom operators, Xinhua News Agency reported. 

The license for the Chinese homegrown TD-SCDMA (Time Division-Synchronous Code Division Multiple Access) standard was assigned to China Mobile, while CDMA2000 (Code Division Multiple Access) and WCDMA (Wideband CDMA) licenses were assigned to China Telecom and China Unicom, respectively, according to the same source. Additionally, the MIIT also announced the issuance of 23 regulations governing 3G network operation in the area of market competition, consumer rights, user information security, telecom charge management, and facility building. 

China Mobile is set to complete the pan-China rollout of its TD-SCDMA service by 2011, Sina New reported quoting the chairman of China Mobile, Wang Jianzhou. Meanwhile, China Telecom and China Unicom have not yet disclosed their specific launch schedule for their respective 3G services though.