14 DAY TRIAL // Mobile phone users in China will soon be able to take advantage of the increased data speeds that 4G networks can provide them with, as the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) has granted 4G licenses to the country’s wireless carriers.
What this means is that China Mobile, China Unicom, and China Telecom will be able to start deploying their 4G services in the country in the near future, and rumor has it that the first compatible devices will be launched in roughly two weeks from now.
As UnwiredView notes, China Mobile received approvals for 130MHz of spectrum (1880-1900 MHz, 2320-2370 MHz, and 2575-2635 MHz).
Furthermore, China Unicom was granted license for 40MHz of spectrum (2300-2320 MHz, 2555-2575 MHz), the same as China Telecom (2370-2390 MHz, 2635-2655 MHz).
These carriers will offer services based on the locally developed TD-LTE technology, but China Unicom and China Telecom will also deploy FDD LTE services, and they should receive 4G license for them as well, separately.
The availability of 4G services in China is expected to increase sales of compatible smartphones from various handset vendors out there, including Apple, which might launch both the iPhone 5s and the iPhone 5c on China Mobile this month.
China Mobile is expected to announce specific info on its 4G services deployment on December 18, but the wireless carrier has been long rumored to be working with vendors out there for the release of smartphones that will connect to it.
Unfortunately, no specific details on what handsets we’ll see on the operator’s TD-LTE network have been provided as of now, though more should become official in the near future.
Said Apple iPhone models appear to be the only mobile phones almost certain to become available for the hundreds of millions of customers that China Mobile enjoys at the moment. Stay tuned for more on this.