China Mobile has put out a US$2.5 billion tenure for the construction of a homegrown 3G TD-SCDMA network in eight major cities, the South China Morning Post reported, citing industry sources. Commercial trials will begin in October, the outcome of which will dictate the timetable for the issue of mainland 3G licenses. Licenses are to be issued for the established, Western-developed WCDMA and CDMA 2000 standards as well as TD-SCDMA. China Mobile last week sent bidding documents for the construction of the network to all qualified telecommunications vendors. They are thought to include ZTE, Datang Mobile, Ericsson and the joint ventures of Huawei-Siemens and China Putian-Nokia. The chosen companies would need to start building the network in May for completion by August. China Mobile will invest US$5.1 billion in the network, which will have a total user capacity of about two million.
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