- Ericsson announced on July 8 that the company has separately signed 2G/3G framework agreements with China Mobile and China Unicom, with the combined value reaching around US$1.7 billion, the Xinhua News reported on July 9. Ericsson's deal with China Mobile is valued at around US$1 billion, including products and solutions to help China Mobile expand its GSM/GPRS (Global System for Mobile Communications/General Packet Radio Service) network coverage and capacity in 18 provinces.

Ericsson also signed a similar agreement with China Unicom, whereby Ericsson will help the latter to upgrade GSM in 10 provinces and deploy core GSM/WCDMA (Wideband Code Division Multiple Access) networks in 15 provinces. The Ericsson-China Unicom deal is valued at US$700 million, according to the same source. In May 2009, Alcatel Lucent also secured similar agreements with these two telecom operators for 3G network upgrades.

- China Mobile and China Telecom have conducted separate field tests for TD-LTE (Time Division-Long Term Evolution), SinoCast Daily Business Beat reported on July 9. Companies participating in the field tests held by China Mobile for TD-LTE include Datang Mobile, Potevio, ZTE, and Huawei. Based on the plan proposed by China's TD-LTE working group, the TD-LTE testing will be divided into two phases, including indoor testing in the first half of 2009 and field testing in the second half of 2009. Furthermore, China Mobile plans to perform large-scale field tests in two to three large cities and build 100 TD-LTE base stations in each city.

Meanwhile, China Telecom has been teaming up with Huawei, Shanghai Bell, Motorola, and ZTE to upgrade its networks from CDMA 2000 EV-DO (Evolution-Data Only) Rev. A to EV-DO Rev. B. China Telecom has begun functional testing for its EV-DO Rev. B network and will begin field tests soon. China Telecom plans to deploy EV-DO Rev. B commercial networks in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou in 2010. After upgrading to EV-DO Rev.B, the network will be capable of delivering a downlink speed of 9.3Mbps and an uplink speed of 5.4Mbps. As of May 2009, China Telecom's 3G network coverage included 342 Chinese cities, with coverage expected to increase to 500 cities by the end of July 2009, according to the same source.

- In the wake of its announcement that it would launch its second-round bid for 3.6 million CDMA mobile phone purchases, China Telecom recently announced that it will invite bids for high-end Smartphone purchases beginning from August 2009, SinoCast Daily Business Beat reported on July 8. Further details, however, were not yet disclosed.