- China is poised to begin the commercialization of 4G mobile technology nationwide in 2014, with an aim to provide faster mobile and broadband services, the China Daily reported on March 9, citing minister of China's MIIT (Ministry of Industry and Information Technology), Miao Wei. Since the year-end 2010, China has been actively working on the deployment of mobile networks based on China's own-developed 4G technology, dubbed TD-LTE (Time Division-Long Term Evolution), the Sohu News reported on March 10. In addition, it is reported that China Mobile mulls launching a telecom equipment purchase tender offer within a month, as part of its efforts to speed up the commercialization of its TD-LTE networks, according again to the Sohu News. China Mobile stated that the company will establish 500 base stations each in seven cities which currently have TD-LTE demonstration networks, including Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Nanjing, Xiamen, and a newly-added city, Hangzhou. It is expected that China Mobile will earmark 1.5 billion RMB (US$227.3 million; US$1 = 6.6 RMB) for the deployment of its pre-commercial TD-LTE networks.
- China Unicom revealed on March 10 that the company plans to upgrade its current WCDMA (Wideband Code Division Multiple Access) mobile network based on HSPA (High Speed Packet Access) technology to HSPA+ (Evolved HSPA) in 56 cities across China in 2011, with an aim to upgrade network's downlink speed from the current 14.4Mbps to 21Mbps, and further to a maximum speed of 186Mbps within several years, the Sina Tech News reported on March 11. China Unicom stated that the company is projected to complete the network upgrades by May 17 this year.