Covering an area of 490,000 square meters, China Mobile's  IOT (Internet of Things) southern base located in Guangzhou, Guangdong province, began operations on December 24, 2009, the Sohu IT News reported on December 25. With a total investment of 6.6 billion RMB (US$970.6 million; US$1 = 6.8 RMB), this southern base operating based on the conept of IOT, which is the network connecting Internet-enabled devices with web services by means of RFID (Radio Frequency Identification), sensors and Smartphones. Meanwhile, Guangdong Mobile, a subsidiary of China Mobile in Guangdong, jointly entered into a cooperation agreement with eight companies, including Huawei, Datang, and Lenovo, whereby they will collaborate in the IOT segment. Guangdong Mobile released IOT products and recruited partners from different segments in November in a bid to implement IOT in the industry's supply chain. Furthermore, China Mobile also plans to combine IOT with China's TD-SCDMA (Time Division, Synchronous Code Division Multiple Access) technology, according to the same source.