- China Unicom recently announced that the company's net addition of new WCDMA (Wideband Code Division Multiple Access) subscribers per month surpassed that of new 2G subscribers for two consecutive months, reflecting the migration of subscribers from 2G to 3G networks, the chinabyte.com reported on January 20. The net addition of China Unicom's new WCDMA subscribers reached 801,000 in November 2009, beating the net addition of its 2G subscribers for the first time. With the net addition of 920,000 new WCDMA subscribers in December 2009, China Unicom had amassed 2.742 million users as of year-end 2009 while the accumulated number of its 2G subscribers reached 145.0 million.

 

- In the wake of the announcement made by Beijing Telecom, a subsidiary of China Telecom in Beijing, that it has teamed up with Huawei to upgrade its network to CDMA2000 1xEVDO (Evolution Data Only) Rev. B using the 2.1Ghz spectrum band, China Telecom's subsidiary in Guangdong, Guangdong Telecom, also upgraded to CDMA2000 1xEVDO Rev. B leveraging Huawei's EVDO Rev. B solution, the Sohu IT News reported on January 19. Rev. B reportedly can deliver a maximum downlink speed of 9.3Mbps and uplink speed of 5.4 Mbps, faster than any CDMA EVDO Rev. A currently available, which can only support 3.1 Mbps maximum downlink speed and 1.8Mbps maximum uplink speed.

 

- With an aim to complete pan-China TD-SCDMA (Time Division-Synchronous Code Division Multiple Access) network coverage in 2010, China Mobile plans to officially kick off its fourth-round TD-SCDMA equipment tender soon after the Chinese Lunar New Year, likely in March 2010, the Sina News reported on January 20. China Mobile is expected to procure more than 400,000 wireless transceivers in this tender, according to the same source. During the third-round tender in 2009, the operator purchased 260,000 TD-SCDMA wireless transceivers and 39,000 base stations for 8.6 billion RMB (US$1.26 billion; US$1 = 8.6 RMB).